


Switching Teams at the Fence Hopping Olympics

by YamiTami



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkwardness, Dave Strider is hopelessly in love with his best friend, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Teamsverse, Teenagers, he's also an unparalleled idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:53:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YamiTami/pseuds/YamiTami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave is under the influence of a condition known as He's Got It Bad For His Best Friend. He enacts a cunning plan to show John that sexuality is not divided into homosexual and not a homosexual. Sexytimes are on the horizon but Dave is in it for the long haul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not a Homosexual

**Author's Note:**

> **OKAY READ THIS PLEASE**  
>  I am aware that Bro's name is Dirk. I also started writing this before Act 6 so I didn't know that when I gave him the name Matt. Please, _please_ stop telling me that Bro's name is Dirk.
> 
> ********
> 
> Also this got a touch of PSA in the area of 'there are more shades to sexuality than gay and straight'. And if anyone has a problem with John enjoying the boykisses after he's declared his hetero: it took me until 23 to figure out my sexuality.
> 
> I would also like to note that I do not condone Dave's plan in any way. This is not an endorsement for the Nice Guys. Just keep reading.
> 
> And off we go.

When Dave set out to seduce John Egbert he knew it wasn’t going to be easy. After all John was not-a-homosexual and his cookie cutter sheltered suburban upbringing didn’t allow for any gray area in his sexuality. Never mind the raging crush on the rebel without a cause, obviously the crush on Liv Tyler negated any leanings towards the more rugged sex. Luckily, when Dave really wanted something he had the patience of stone, and he _really_ wanted that dorky, bucktoothed, paradoxically broad shouldered and square jawed piece of ass.

Of course he wasn’t just in it for the ass, fine though it might be. You don’t seduce a boy like John Egbert and then drop him when you’re done thoroughly divesting him of his virginity. No, anyone who stays that sweet after years of glasses and overbite and public school deserves a little bit more than that. A lot more, in fact, and Dave was more than willing to give John everything and more. But before he could start working on the heavy stuff he had to get around an annoying little roadblock. So Dave tucked away his dreams of a white picket fence—an ironic fence, obviously—and focused on his shallower fantasies involving his best friend riding his lap and begging for more.

It was their junior year when he started figuring this out and he leapt to action. It was only a matter of time before the bitchy girls at their school figured out what Dave knew all along: that John was insanely attractive. Dave had to make sure his best bro’s ass was safe with him and not with some self-centered princess who would only wreck that happy glittery way John looked at romance. He also knew he had to be careful or he’d end up doing the same thing.

Dave started small. He’d edge a little closer when they were playing shitty video games, he’d brush fingers when handing over a bottle of apple juice, and spend a lot of time with a hand on John’s shoulder. He progressed slowly but surely. He’d sit down and slide right over so they were hip to hip, brush away any Dorito dust that escaped John’s mouth, and that hand on his best friend’s shoulder traveled down to the small of the back. John never flinched away and was never bothered by how touchy-feely Dave was becoming. It wasn’t long before John was the one flopping down on the couch practically in the other boy’s lap and goofily reaching out to brush platinum blond hair back into place. It was very encouraging. Dave would never have admitted it before he had that confirmation, but he was worried that, while John clearly had some hidden bisexual leanings, he might not necessarily lean in Dave’s direction. It was a big relief—a relief the coolkid would never ever admit to feeling—when he realized that John’s physical affection with either of their sisters didn’t match how much time John spent touching Dave.

He had just initiated phase two, sneaking that arm around John’s shoulders when they watched movies, when an unexpected opportunity presented itself. In the middle of the school day John suddenly became strangely muted, not so down to really alarm his three closest friends but it was certainly noticeable. After swearing to the girls that he’d get to the bottom of it Dave took off to the mall with his best friend in tow. They hit the arcade and the food court and ironically tried on hipster clothes and that vaguely melancholy air remained. Dave was starting to get within reach of worried so he hauled John back to the apartment he shared with his brother. Once Dave shut the door he put his hands on John’s hips and pushed the boy back until the back of his legs hit the couch. John sat down with an ooph and blinked up at the cross-armed blond standing over him.

“What the hell, Dave?” he asked with a very distracting pout. Dave steeled himself against the impressive display of macho and soldiered on straight into the heart of the matter.

“You’ve been a stick all day, bro,” Dave said, allowing some of the concern to reach his voice. Completely intentional. “Come on, man, you can tell me anything.”

“Oh... well of course I know that, it’s just,” John leaned back and sighed heavily as he took in the ceiling. “It’s just kind of silly.”

Dave settled in next to him—thighs and shoulders touching—and nudged John with his elbow. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

“I... asked Bethany Greer to the junior prom.”

It was only through seventeen years of lessons in stoicism and the unbreakable Strider brand poker face that Dave was able to contain his overwhelming dismay, but he managed it. He dug down deep and produced a blank sounding, “Oh?” in response.

“Yeah. She said no.”

“Well then she’s an idiot who doesn’t deserve your attention,” Dave decreed. He dreaded the answer but he make himself ask, “You’re not too hung up on this chick, are you?”

John stopped examining the cracked plaster and shook his head. “Oh no, I don’t even really have a crush on her or anything. It’s just... why she said she didn’t want to go with me.”

Dave halted the victory parade going on in his head and wrapped his arm around John’s shoulders completely platonically. “Lay it on me, bro.”

“Well... she said...” John ducked his head in embarrassment. “Shesaidmyoverbitewouldmakemeaterriblekisser.”

Dave took a couple seconds to decode that and then several more to suppress the urge to hunt down Bethany Greer and strangle her. Occasionally the jerks would get to John about his teeth or his glasses or general wonderful doofiness, but he’d always bounce back inside of an hour. This time he’d been carrying it around for half the day already. Dave hugged John’s shoulders tighter, overcome with the urge to protect his friend from the jerks of the world. That was how it was supposed to be, Dave being jaded enough for both of them so John never had to pick up those bad, cynical habits.

“Okay, first of all, fuck her,” Dave said. From the way John jumped a little and boggled Dave was less than successful in keeping the anger out of his voice. “Two, you’re going to be a great kisser. Third, fuck her. She’s not good enough for you.”

“But what if it does get in the way?” John asked miserably. He slumped against Dave and started wringing his fingers, which was a good sign that he was really worried. “The closest I’ve come to kissing a girl was pecking Rose on the lips when we were nine.”

“You’ve got one thing right: kissing my sister does not count as kissing a girl.”

“That’s mean!” John laughed and Dave felt the knot in his gut loosen a tiny bit. Then John sighed sadly and it all came back. “But really, I don’t know. It would make sense if my teeth would get in the way.”

“No it wouldn’t. You’re going to be a great kisser, trust me on this.”

“You don’t _know_ that,” John shot back. The way he was twisting under his friend’s arm put his mouth dangerously close to Dave’s neck. The sensation of warm breath ghosting over his throat proved to be a little too much for Dave’s mind to handle.

“I could find out.”

It took the space of about half a second for Dave to realize that he said that _out loud_ at which point he could have thrown himself off the roof. He had a plan for this, he was going to seduce John slowly and with every ounce of subtlety and finesse he possessed. Offering to find out if John’s overbite got in the way of sloppy makeouts was not even in shouting distance of subtle.

Dave did an impressive mental scramble trying to figure out a way to salvage the situation. He kept his eyes straight ahead and resolutely did not look at the object of his affections, who he could feel moving under his arm. He didn’t really have to look at John to know that the boy blinked a couple times as he processed that last extremely stupid statement before sitting up to look at his completely legitimately calm friend with confusion. Those impossibly bright blue eyes would be fixed on Dave’s face, those oh so tempting lips would be slightly parted as John figured out how to respond, the tip of that pink tongue darting out to run over those pearly whites in a really distracting nervous habit he had and seriously fuck Bethany Greer.

“... What?” John managed at last. Dave chanced a glance to the side and sure enough he was met with parted lips and wide eyes and he cursed John’s infinite reserves of adorableness. He tried his best to look away but found the task impossible.

“What?” Dave responded intelligently. Since he was preoccupied imagining John licking his lips he hadn’t come up with a way out of his idiotic slip. He was aware he should probably not be pressed up against John when he was in that kind of state but he could not make himself take his arm back. Besides, he reasoned, if he pulled away then John might be hurt by it. He tightened his grip around his best friend’s shoulders and John snuggled in closer. Dave was torn. On the one hand the closeness was good because it meant that he hasn’t scared John off, but on the other hand Dave’s self control was already in tatters.

John was still looking up at him with that slightly confused and infinitely trusting expression. Mentally groping around for _anying_ to save their friendship and his grand plans of seduction, Dave came up with irony. He felt cheap, using it as a shield, but he could not think of anything else. Hopefully his brother wouldn’t find out and school him for it.

Then again if Dave told his friend exactly what he wanted to do to him and through honesty convinced John it wasn’t true then it would in fact be a proper application of irony. Maybe. Dave’s brainpower was mostly taken up by analyzing every square inch of John currently pressed against him.

“If you won’t believe me when I tell you that you’re going to be an excellent kisser I can’t see any other way to solve this except finding out for myself,” Dave said with smooth dethatched calm. He mustered up a silent ‘fuck yeah’ in self congratulations for keeping his voice steady even when his mind was a disaster zone. It should be illegal to have eyes that blue.

“Oh...” John mumbled. He had that puzzled look he always had when he was trying to work out what level of irony he was hearing.

“Hey a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do when it comes to helping his best bro,” Dave continued. He had to really lay it on thick so that John would think it wasn’t true. “If you’re worried about your teeth getting in the way—which is bogus—then I’ve got to step up to the plate and teach you how it’s done.”

“How are you going to teach me when you’ve never kissed anyone either?”

The words themselves were enough of a blow to the well traveled façade Dave put on for others, but the smirk on John’s face was a kick straight to the ego. Dave frowned and John’s irritating little grin got bigger.

“I’ve kissed a girl.”

That earned a chuckle. “You kissed Hanna on the lips on a dare.”

“I kissed her three times.”

“There wasn’t any tongue.”

Dave wondered how it was possible that such an oblivious boy could see right through the coolkid. Only on certain things or else Dave’s plans would be useless, but still. No one else could cut right through the way John did without even trying. It was a big part of the reason Dave wanted him so badly.

“Don’t spread that around, okay?” Dave said very seriously. While his ego was bruised he was starting to feel much less panicked and as an added bonus he didn’t have to remove his arm from John’s shoulders.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to wreck your fake reputation for being a manwhore.”

“Hey now I’m going to have to wash your mouth out with soap.”

“Is it ironic that people think you’re a manwhore when you’re really a giant virgin?”

“A _cake_ of soap.”

John poked his friend in the stomach and laughed, that deep rumbling chuckle that did embarrassing things to Dave’s heart rate. He allowed the coolkid to slip enough to smile back, a small smile but a smile nonetheless. John beamed and it was like looking into the sun. John shifted, even closer, and Dave tightened his arm accordingly. Completely normal, cuddling with your best bro on the couch. Nothing to get all flustered about.

There was a comfortable stretch of silence before John asked, “Well, are we?”

“Are we what?”

John was fiddling with his fingers again. “Are we...” his voice lowered to a whisper. “Are we going to try it?”

“Try the what now?”

“Um... seeing if my overbite would... ummm... you know.”

Dave knew that while John couldn’t actually see his freak eyes getting as big as dinner plates the other boy would be able to see his eyebrows climbing to dizzying heights over the top of his glasses. At last he managed an only slightly strangled, “What?”

“It would help you out too, right? Since, um, then you’d be able to have some experience,” John said, still quiet. “So you can be extra convincing with your, uh, reputation for...”

Dave’s heartbeat was pounding in his head. Eyes locked on his best friend’s, he saw the exact moment when the ‘oh shit’ panic took over. John physically flinched before he buried his face in Dave’s shoulder, clearly mortified. After a couple seconds he started mumbling an apology and started to pull away.

Whatever his plans, whatever his grand ambitions, there was no way that Dave could leave John with that kicked puppy look on his face. He pulled John back and reached up with his free hand to tilt his best friend’s chin up. John looked surprised at first but as Dave closed the distance between them his eyes fluttered shut and his lips parted and it was just as good as Dave had always imagined it would be.

Of course it was less smooth than he thought it would be. They pressed their lips together and it was mostly chaste but their mouths were just a little open and Dave could taste the cherry Icee on the other boy’s breath. Somewhere in there Dave felt the nagging terror come back telling him that he was going to screw it all up, he was going to lose John as a boyfriend and as a friend by pushing it too far, too fast. Then John’s hand was sliding over his shoulder and neck leaving a damp sweaty trail and his best friend’s tongue was running the length of his bottom lip and that overbite did not get in the way _at all_. John’s mouth tasted like sugar and artificial cherry flavor and the irony of that almost made Dave laugh into the kiss. At some point their teeth clicked and Dave’s lip got pinched between but he really didn’t care that it stung because he was kissing John Egbert and he’d have rolled through a pile of broken glass and puppet dick to get that...

Way too soon they had to break apart because their glasses were having a fight and one of them was going to end up with a cut nose if they kept it up. Dave slowly became aware of a shiny line of drool going down the side of John’s chin and he could feel the matched pair on his own face. He also became aware of the look that John was giving him, nervous and uncertain but mostly his expression was very pleased. Dave realized, far too late, that he was staring with his mouth open and even with his shades on it was probably pretty obvious how much that kiss affected him. Coolkids didn’t get all flustered after an awkwardly wonderful and painfully short makeout session with a cherry-flavored doofus so hot it should be illegal.

It wasn’t until John reached up to scrub away that smear of spit that Dave even realized that he was being spoken to. He rewound in his head and was able to process that John wanted to know if he was okay. Dave floundered for something smooth and unaffected that would still tell John that he was definitely not lacking in the kissing department, but it turned out that silence was all he needed. After a few seconds John smiled, not the huge beaming smile that was his norm but instead something softer. Dave’s heart did a pleasant and completely manly flutter at the sight and the knowledge that he was the one who banished John’s doubts. He would have leaned back in and continued banishing doubts if his Bro didn’t pick that moment to fumble with his keys and ironically shout, ‘honey, I’m home!’ outside the apartment door.

John squeaked in surprise while Dave’s reaction was a measure more cool. They quickly adjusted their crooked glasses and moved so they were a little less in each other’s laps, though their legs were still touching. When Bro walked in there was no evidence that the two of them were just making out aside from the blush lingering on John’s cheeks and the seething resentment Dave was telepathically sending his brother’s way. Of course he knew, figured it out even as Bro was opening the door, that this was for the best. A single kiss, extended though it may have been, could be explained away as Dave being an exceptionally good friend. If he leaned in again after the point had very clearly been made then John might have had a few questions and it was still too early for Dave to answer them.

However, and Dave was very excited about this though of course he would never show it, even though kissing John again would lead to difficult questions later, Dave was pretty sure that John wouldn’t have particularly minded having Dave’s tongue in his mouth again. With the estimated sexuality meter a few clicks more towards bi Dave was feeling extremely confidant in his chances.

Now if he could just keep his hands to himself long enough to get John for good, not just for a single makeout session.


	2. Calculus Kisses

With the next day came a bone crushing panic. Dave was terrified that he’d shown his hand too soon, that he scared John off, but to his surprise it was all okay. There was a slightly awkward moment when they came face to face in homeroom but it passed quickly. Back to being best bros, just the same as before... though Dave thought he might have seen John give him a shy, speculative look. He made himself not think about it because if he did then he was going to do something else stupid. He had to stick to the plan, slow and steady, and until they got to the point of sloppy makeouts Dave would have the memory of John’s lips against his to remember. Vividly. And often.

It was exactly sixteen days later when John flabbergasted Dave by making the next move. Given that it was John—adorable, sheltered, oblivious John—Dave wasn’t sure what to think about the shy suggestion that they practice so there would be less drool and teeth clacking when they found girls to kiss. Even though Dave saw his best friend as innocence to be protected he had no delusions about John’s less than innocent side, small though it might be, and he knew that it was well within the realm of possibility that John was fabricating a weak excuse to make out with his crush. It was also well within the realm of possibility that John was feeling a little bi-curious and wanted to explore that with his cool and unruffled completely platonic best friend, or that he was being completely honest and just wanted practice keeping his teeth out of the way so he’d feel more confident when he kissed a girl.

Once thing was certain: whatever John’s reasons there was no way Dave could turn him down. Equal parts selfish and self-sacrificing, Dave would answer John’s unspoken questions about not-a-homosexual, he would show his best friend that those buck teeth did not make him a bad kisser in the slightest, and if that knowledge took John to a girl—or another guy, which was sure to hurt so much worse—then Dave would deal with his broken heart. Probably not very well, but if John was happy then he would manage.

“Anything for my best bro,” Dave murmured, husky and low, the sentiment running much deeper than a little experimentation.

He wrapped his arms around the other boy and pulled John close, tilting his friend’s chin up and starting slow and sweet, the kisses gradually deepening as they held each other tighter and tighter. At last they pulled away panting for breath, the last kiss still a little on the drooly awkward side but much improved from when they started and neither of them was particularly complaining. The only reason they broke apart in the first place was because their glasses were getting in the way again. John reached up with hands that shook ever so slightly and took his off, folding them carefully and leaning over to set them on his desk. Then he looked back to his friend, squinting even though their faces were a foot apart, and started chewing on his lip.

Slowly, hesitantly, John brought his hands up again. Dave was so distracted by the lip biting that he didn’t realize what was going on until John touched his shades. He pulled his head back on instinct and his heart clenched at the dejected look on his best friend’s face. Dave closed his eyes and whispered, “Sorry, man,” before reaching up and taking the shades off himself. He carefully folded them up and set them next to John’s, his eyes turned down and only open a sliver.

Dave found himself transfixed by the image of their glasses sitting side by side and he was hit with one of his more dangerous fantasies. They were spooned together, Dave curled around his best friend with his arm tight across John’s bare chest. Sideways over the top of John’s head Dave saw their two pairs of glasses, prescription and ironic, sitting on the bedside table.

The hair Dave had his nose buried in was gray.

Back in time, back to the present, back to two teenage boys standing wrapped around each other and wrapped in pretense though Dave didn’t know what it was anymore. John was cupping the other boy’s cheek, urging Dave to face him. Every instinct Dave had, well honed from seventeen years of freak eyes and the human race, was telling him to keep his eyes shut even though John had seen them before. He forced his eyelids open, forced himself to look right into that soul searing blue, and the raw intimacy of it made his mouth go dry.

Dave wasn’t sure exactly what his naked face looked like but he would have been willing to bet that it was not even remotely cool. He tried to claw his way back to stoic but then John looked at him with such tender understanding that Dave didn’t care how uncool he was being. He pushed his friend back and ended up shoving a little harder than he meant to; John hit the wall with a quiet ‘oomph’. Dave was just starting to ask if John was okay when he was grabbed by the collar and jerked forward. Dave’s fantasies of glasses and gray hair flew right out the window and were replaced by elegant piano-player’s fingers winding through blond hair and _yanking_. The two boys roughhoused all the time, but Dave had never connected the way John was when they were wrestling for the remote to the way John might act in the bedroom.

There was still something tender in John’s eyes when they pulled apart to catch their breath. He knew that it was hard for Dave to take those shades off. He knew that Dave hated the way the stares and whispers still stung. John knew exactly how big of a deal it was that he was staring at those cherry red irises, and Dave knew that John was taking it seriously.

What Dave didn’t know but was starting to suspect was that he had seriously underestimated John Egbert.

The gentle understanding was still somewhere in that vivid blue underneath the look of a predator sizing up its prey. Dave had seen that look before, usually right before John stopped messing around and used superior strength to pin his friend down, but there against that wall it was so much more and so much hungrier. Dave barely had the chance to register he was moving and then his back was slamming into the sheetrock. He could make a point of the three inches of height he had on John but it would have seemed very hollow when they both knew exactly where the advantage lay. Dave was taller and he was certainly faster but once he was caught none of that made any difference. Mr. Egbert’s insistence on his son building up mangrit and five years marching with a contrabassoon saw to that.

Dave was trapped between the wall and the well-toned and smirking object of his affections, and he found that the idea of being at John’s mercy was a favorable one.

It was a long time later that they broke away and kept their hands to themselves. John commented that they were much better at it now, even as he blushed and looked away shyly as though he hadn’t recently pinned his best friend to a wall and thoroughly attacked said friend’s mouth with an enthusiastic tongue. Dave said that they clearly still had a long ways to go before they were ready to share their kissing prowess with their adoring public. John agreed and they both pretended that was why they spent half the summer liplocked.

A couple weeks into their senior year they were hanging out after school. As was now the norm when it was just the two of them someone ended up pinned to something. On that particular day Dave had to keep his hands to himself when a jerk in gym decided to dump the water cooler over John’s head. Wet white shirt, icy temperature making two enticing little points stand out even more than they already were, and Dave couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Not until school was over and he grabbed John’s wrist and practically dragged the boy to the city bus stop (in a very cool way of course), made himself think about puppets during the ride, and then all but ran the distance to John’s cookie cutter suburban house. The second John closed the front door he was being slammed against it.

Dave grabbed that deliciously messy black hair and crashed their lips together. After a couple seconds John responded by grabbing Dave’s belt, using the handhold to try and force his friend against the entryway wall. However, Dave had to spent two periods fighting the oh so hot image of John’s chest outlined by clingy wet cotton, the sight of him pulling the soaked shirt off, knowing that John had absolutely no idea how unbearably sexy he was being and that made it even _hotter_ , and he was not going to be denied the opportunity to make John pay for it.

When John shoved away from the door Dave was ready. In one smooth motion he used the momentum to spin them around. John’s back hit the wall and he blinked at his friend. Dave leaned down and raked his teeth across John’s pulse point. When he sucked at the skin just left of center Dave could feel the other boy’s Adam’s apple bobbing as John audibly gulped. Dave grinned into the sensitive neck he was lavishing with attention; John was stronger but over the summer Dave had learned how to play dirty. He forced a hand between the wall and his best friend, suddenly getting a lot more space to move as John arched into the firm body pinning him. Dave kept scratching that certain spot on John’s spine until he drew a long, throaty moan from John’s lips.

Dave straightened, sliding his hand around to rest on John’s hip. He ceased all ministrations and drank in the sight of John’s flushed cheeks, unfocused eyes, and the very tempting way those oh so kissable lips were parted as the boy panted. As hard as it was Dave forced himself to stay still and wait for his friend to pull himself together... though that became impossible when John’s tongue darted out to trace the bottom of his overbite. It was a habit that John probably thought was completely innocent but Dave knew how wrong that was. He reached up and cupped John’s face in his hands before closing the distance. He somehow managed to hold back and keep it gentle, light, and almost chaste. John was the one who deepened it. Just like every other time John took some initiative Dave had to fight to contain the relieved laughter that threatened to spill out.

Then John’s teeth and tongue were on Dave’s earlobe and he utterly failed at containing some extraordinarily uncool mewls of pleasure. Dave wasn’t the only one who had learned how to fight dirty over the summer.

Once John had evened the playing field he stopped torturing his friend with wonderful sensations. Dave glared through his shades, then he glared without the obstruction when the other boy took them off. John had spent the past few months systematically breaking Dave of the habit of flinching and ducking away whenever those ironic frames were touched. Even after a couple months John still lit up whenever his best bro let him do it. That was enough to soften Dave’s irritation at having the tables turned. He pulled off John’s glasses, took his shades from the other boy, dropped them on the entryway table, and then turned back to his best friend.

John’s hands were creeping up Dave’s back, rubbing slow firm circles all the way up to his shoulder blades. It was nice, very nice, but it wasn’t what Dave wanted. He saw the way some of the less idiotic girls looked at John when he peeled off his gym shirt. Dave also noticed a couple of the guys who were staring. He wanted what they were staring at, he wanted to _possess_ his best friend. Under the teenage lust he felt a little guilty for the thought, but then John was tilting his head back and giving Dave full access to that tempting neck and all higher brain functions shut down.

Before long John was a pile of mush only kept upright by Dave’s body pressing him into the wall. Dave relished each and every gasp and moan as he sucked along John’s jaw—Dave was definitely a fan of the ladies but he was starting to think that he was closer to the homosexual side of the bi spectrum. There was just something about running his tongue across a square jawline, the slight scritch of stubble against his cheek, and the deeper pitch of the pleased noises he was drawing forth... it turned him on in a way that he doubted even the nicest breasts could match.

Dave’s contemplation of the specific manly ways his best friend got to him was interrupted by the cheerful ringtone John had assigned to his dad.

Dave thought it was pretty impressive how steady and casual John was able to keep his voice given that not thirty seconds ago he was being ravaged by his best friend. Dave left John to it and wandered to the kitchen where he splashed his face with cold water and tried his best to get his raging libido under control. He was still gripping the edge of the sink and struggling with that task when he heard John shuffle in behind him.

“Um...” and Dave did not have to look to know what adorable embarrassed expression was on John’s blushing face. “Uh, Dave, that was my dad. He, um, he said he had to extend his business trip another couple of days and... he said it might be a good idea if you stayed over? Or if I stay with you?”

“Oh yeah of course. You’re only seventeen in an area where the biggest crime ever committed is those bright yellow Bermuda shorts your neighbor wears. Obviously you need my protection,” Dave said, the detached tone comfortable and as easy to pull on as the worn shirt he wore when he was sick. Underneath he was flailing. Close quarters for the night with his best friend right after having John pliant and willingly submissive against him... yeah, he couldn’t think of how that could go wrong.

There was a long pause. “If you don’t want to stay the night you don’t have to.”

Dave Strider could withstand truly impressive physical or verbal assaults, but he had absolutely no chance against the awesome power of John’s accurate impersonation of a kicked puppy. Or bunny, as the case might be... Dave took a moment to wonder why he didn’t realize then, when he was 13 and reveling in how _good_ it made him feel to see John so happy about getting that ratty prop, that he was in love with his best friend. He realized he was thinking about the past to avoid thinking about his present predicament. While it would be torture trying not to grab John’s crotch—the sloppy make out session were going very well but Dave still wasn’t quite brave enough to push that boundary yet—there was no way he could leave while John had that abandoned look on his face.

“I’m always looking for an excuse to hang out with my best bro,” Dave said with precise carelessness and damn but John had no business lighting up the room like that. If the coolkid wasn’t already wearing shades he’d likely have been blinded.

While John was _John_ it was obvious that he was sharing the frustration of battling the sexual tension. Not to mention his own hormones. While the two boys usually sat shoulder to shoulder on one side of the kitchen table as they poured over their homework on that day they sat on opposite sides with legs tucked under their chairs on a mutual unspoken agreement not to start any more sick fires. As usual John clucked over Dave’s math solutions and Dave walked John through their creative writing assignment; B+/A- students by their powers combined. John was the only tutor Dave had ever liked, mostly because he was the only one who didn’t go on and on about how musicians were supposed to be natural mathematicians. John often said he’d be lost without Dave keeping him from turning in anything with unintentional copyright infringement; without fail the outlines of his short stories would mimic one terrible action movie or another. Dave suggested other movies John could take elements from and explained once again that taking from one source was plagiarism but taking from a dozen was research.

If Dave had to write a top ten of things that turned him off then having to find square roots was definitely in the top three. Even with John’s oh so nice voice explaining how the damn things worked Dave was able to calm down and get his arousal to a reasonable level... right up until John decided chewing on his pen was a good idea. Dave saw him do that all the time in school but on that particular day he was already hot under the collar and seeing flashes of that enticing pink tongue as the teeth which were just recently teasing Dave’s oversensitive earlobes gnawed on the black plastic cap, well, he was glad he was sitting across from John instead of beside him. Dave was just glad he was sitting down. He was starting to get frustrated with himself in more than one way; he’d never had this much trouble keeping himself under control. It was a struggle stopping himself from walking around that table and straddling John’s lap and—Dave focused on derivatives and cursed his stupid teenage body messing with his completely mature plans of careful seduction.

Then John suggested they watch some porn.


	3. Chick Pea Sushi Roll

Math problems had been double-checked and first drafts were written. After putting their books away Dave flopped onto the couch and texted his brother while John got snacks—not cake—from the kitchen. When John came back with a bag of popcorn Dave expected to have a lap full of best friend, which he wasn’t sure he could take. Quadratic formulas might have taken the edge off but Dave Strider was still a very frustrated teenage boy at that point. He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed when John sat on the next cushion over.

The longer they sat there watching whatever action movie John had put in the more Dave wondered about the distance; it was very possible that John decided against their usual closeness because he was just as frustrated after the heated make out session. This could be a very good omen for the Show John The Glorious Way Of Gay Sex plan as a whole, but right there and then the idea of John being turned on just turned Dave on even more. They would be sleeping sprawled together in the same bed, as they always did, and that could be very dangerous. The whole point was to warm John up to the idea slowly, not get scared off when he rolls over Dave to turn on the alarm and finds something poking his hip.

Dave tried to work out a game plan for the fastest jerk off of his life. They both showered in the mornings so it would seem odd if he caught one that evening. Even if he ‘accidentally’ dropped his glass of Dr Pepper in his lap John would come in to brush his teeth and wash his face and talk to Dave, so that was completely out. He couldn’t think of anything off hand that would keep John busy and unsuspicious for the amount of time he would be in the bathroom—horny teenage boy he might have been but he was only barely hard—and was seriously considering putting in Con Air and hoping for the best when John cleared his throat.

“Yeah man?” Dave asked, a little wary. It wasn’t like his best friend to pull a Rose and do things passive aggressively.

John shifted nervously before finally looking at the other boy and asking in a voice almost shy, “Since no one else is in the house, do you want to watch some porn?”

Dave had the sneaking suspicion that if he had been drinking anything he’d have done an impressive spit take. As it was he managed to keep his poker face intact while he pondered that less than innocent suggestion.

It wasn’t as though they’d never watched porn before. It wasn’t a regular habit, mostly because Mr. Egbert was usually either home or due back from the office soon and Bro kept such an irregular schedule between his fifty jobs it was impossible to know when he’d walk in the door. Dave wasn’t entirely sure Matt would be okay with the knowledge that his little bro cracked the password on the online server that held his electronic porn stash, among other things, and Dave wasn’t planning on finding out anytime soon. With John’s dad safely in another city this was the perfect time to flex some rebellious muscles... there was really no reason to say no. You know, aside from the whole in love with your best friend thing.

As a couple seconds ticked by something from Dave’s past experience with watching porn with his best friend floated up and snapped into place: whenever John got to the point where he needed to get his hand around his dick he’d get embarrassed and run to the bathroom to finish, leaving Dave behind and most importantly _alone_. Forged out of steel and tempered in sick fires as his mask might have been but he still barely contained the sigh of relief when he realized he’d be able to take care of his problem without worrying about whose name he moaned when he came.

“Okay,” Dave replied. He had a whole sentence prepared in his mind but he lost the thread. It was hard to hold onto smooth and casual when he knew that very soon he’d have a front row seat to his best friend and love interest squirming and gasping in arousal.

As soon as Dave’s monosyllabic answer passed his lips John was up on his feet, then he was looking self-conscious about jumping up so quickly, and after a few seconds of that he scurried around turning everything off in the living room. At the awkward-why-did-I-leap-up-like-that phase Dave got up and headed towards the stairs, doing his best not to seem too eager and mostly failing, but he figured he could get away with it since John wasn’t really looking. Once he got up to John’s room Dave tipped an imaginary hat to the competition residing in the giant fiery poster, brushed the ratty prop bunny with the back of his fingers, forced the distinctly uncool warm goofy grin off his face, and then gathered up the laptop and flopped onto the bed. He was settled comfortably on his stomach and opening the browser when John walked in.

Dave stayed focused on the task of pulling up his brother’s online files and didn’t look up when he heard the door click shut. He was well aware that, even given his best friend’s adorable habit of getting embarrassed and leaving before Dave was in serious danger of naming names, there was a good chance he would slip up if he wasn’t careful. And that meant as little eye contact with the other boy as was humanly possible in that situation. The shades were still firmly in place but John had a bad habit of seeing right through the mask. While the fact that John got him was one of the things Dave loved so much, at that moment it could cause problems.

Luckily, Dave had the excuse of sorting through folders and once they found something of course his eyes would be riveted on the naked skin on the screen. He was pretty sure that keeping his eyes fixed on the porn and not John’s flushed face with his parted lips and blue eyes half closed in lust...

Dave forcibly thought of unsexy things. The whole “it’ll be okay because John will leave before you get really close” thing only worked if he didn’t get started before he even got to the right folder.

Then the mattress bounced and Dave had to think of even more unsexy things to counteract the fact that his imagination was running away with the idea of the weight settling in beside him settling on top of him. John’s body lying on his, pressing him into the mattress, their hips flush and something hard and hot oh no he was not thinking about that when he was already having trouble focusing on the folders. Finally he found the right directory, which for reasons known only to Matt Strider was buried in financial records. The nonsense titles were actually a code that Dave only half understood.

“What about...” John mumbled. “What about ‘chick peas in a pod with strawberry sprinkles and—“

While half the code was a mystery Dave did know what the first part meant. “’Chick Peas’ means guy on guy, bro.”

Dave knew the odds, but he was still mildly disappointed when John didn’t tell him to hit play. He scrolled down looking for some familiar keywords and had barely scanned two when John nudged his arm.

“Waaaaaait a minute. I thought your brother was straight?”

“More to life than homosexual and not-a-homosexual, bro,” Dave said vaguely, the reply almost automatic. He clamped down on the snark and weighed the options. On the one hand it was clear that John wasn’t going to get this information anywhere else, but on the other explaining Matt’s sexuality would give John an easy out for making out with Dave but not dating him. It was a fierce internal struggle but in the end Dave reluctantly gave John a real answer.

“Look, he’s bisexual and heteroromantic.”

“... Hetawhat?”

Dave dared to look to the side and damn if John’s cute clueless expression wasn’t making it that much harder to not kiss him. “Bro’s cool with making out with both guys and girls, so that’s the bisexual. Heteroromantic means he only feels right actually dating a girl. Both genders turn him on, right, but he only gets emotionally attached to girls. Makes sense?”

“Oh... okay,” John mumbled, obviously still digesting the idea. For a moment it looked like he had something else he was going to ask and Dave felt his stomach sink at the thought of it being a question about his own sexuality. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to lie to his best friend and even if he tried John would see straight through the act. Dave wasn’t sure what would happen if John knew that the guy he’d been making out with was bisexual, biromantic, and knew it.

As the silence stretched not quite uncomfortable but definitely not relaxed, Dave felt a growing unease about that part of the plan. John had never asked, but Dave wasn’t sure if that necessarily meant he didn’t have an obligation to tell. John was definitely enjoying the newer physical dimension of their relationship but if his reaction to Matt’s sexuality was any indication the thought that Dave might be attracted to boys never crossed his mind. Dave wondered if John would have ever suggested their first kiss if he had thought about that possibility. He wondered if telling John now would mean no more hot makeouts, no more kissing sweet and slow, no more practically sitting in each other’s laps on the couch, no more sleeping curled up together...

Guilt and the potential for heartache warred inside Dave’s head. When John nudged him and reminded him that they needed something less ‘chick peas’ to watch, Dave pushed the issue to the back of his mind. He felt like a complete and utter coward and he was pretty sure that John deserved someone a lot less selfish, but he shoved it down and blocked it out. Dave focused on the list, found something with the code for fast and hot and guy on girl, and hit play so he could stop thinking.

The video didn’t even make an attempt at plot, or if it did originally the beginning had been cut off. There wasn’t any talking, no overloud cries of ‘oh god’, just bouncing breasts and moans at a reasonable decibel and a close up shot of a thick shaft sliding in and out.

Dave didn’t see any of it. He kept his eyes trained on the far side of the screen so he could get the most out of his peripheral vision. The angle was still such that he only caught a few glimpses—John biting his lip, John running his tongue back and forth over his teeth—so Dave focused on the things that weren’t visual. Sound was his domain and it was easy to key into the rhythm of the other boy’s breathing. Carefully even when naked flesh first appeared on the screen, then the tempo rose as John’s control slipped. Dave licked his lips and imagined he was the reason John’s breath hitched, imagined his hand was sliding up John’s bare back, his fingers hooking in the elastic of John’s briefs and dragging them down, touching the hard, hot flesh he freed and reveling in the guttural moans he’d draw forth as he pleasured the boy he loved.

John got his hand between his body and the mattress so he could rub his crotch. He spread out to get easier access, just a little, just enough that his leg touched Dave’s. Even through two layers of denim the contact made his skin burn. Calf-to-calf contact was probably as chaste as it got but it still sent a jolt of electricity up Dave’s leg and all the way up to his face. His dick throbbed and his lips tingled and he moaned, the sound echoed by a needy gasp. Dave supposed that the porn was getting really good but he didn’t have any presence of mind to pay attention when John was right there with his hand where Dave wanted his hand and making those wonderful noises and Dave had no idea if he was going to be able to stay on his side of the bed if it kept up.

It was equal parts relief and disappointment when John flipped over. Based on past experience Dave knew that John would take a few deep, measured breaths to get himself under control, then he’d sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed, then he’d take off like greased lightning for the door. Dave held his breath, waiting for the weight to leave the mattress and that door to slam so he could shut the laptop and focus solely on imagining how John would be tugging at his cock safely behind the bathroom door where he would not hear the way his best friend breathed his name like a prayer.

Dave held his breath as the seconds ticked away and nothing happened. Finally he let the air out in a rush when it became clear that John wasn’t moving. Dave waited, still aside from the instinctive slow roll of his hips against the sheets, until finally John sat up. However there was still no move towards the door, or even to put his feet on the floor. John just sat there. After a while he moved to sit cross legged, which both announced his intention to stay right where he was and put his leg back into contact with Dave’s body. This time, however, it wasn’t calf-to-calf, it was knee-to-upper thigh. Dave wondered how much lust one person could fight back before their head exploded and figured that whatever that limit was he was getting pretty damn close.

Eventually Dave decided that he wasn’t going to be able to take any part of his best friend touching him without some kind of breakdown being involved, so he rolled over and arranged his legs so there was no contact. He really, really wanted to let his hand drift down now that he no longer had the mattress to press against but he was already too close to be sure he could keep his mouth shut. So Dave ignored the ache and stared at the back of John’s head as though he would find all the answers in the messy patterns made in ruffled black hair.

John just sat there staring straight ahead and damn if it didn’t look like he was a lot less hot and bothered than the other boy. Dave guessed that was to be expected since John had one point of eye candy and he had two, but it still rubbed him wrong. He wanted to make his best friend squirm with a single coolkid glance even though he knew that was never going to happen. A big part of Dave’s attraction was the fact that John was immune but he still wished the boy was just a little less impervious so the whole seduction could go faster and so he’d have John pinned under him begging for more a little sooner.

At that moment Dave just wanted _something_ to happen. He either needed to get off fast or turned off fast, and neither was likely when John was sitting right there next to him. Dave decided there was nothing left but poking the situation with a stick to see if anything would change.

“Why’re you still here?”

“Why do you want to get rid of me?”

Dave’s question was spontaneous and the tiniest touch emotional while John’s response was careless and flat. Dave scrambled to figure out a way to phrase things that didn’t suck while reeling from the vertigo of the role reversal.

“No, man, it’s just you usually take off near the end. I was wondering what changed, that’s all.”

John considered that, or at least Dave assumed that was the case since John was still facing away. “Why do you think I did that?” John said at last and it was Dave’s turn to consider.

“I guess... I think you’re embarrassed?”

Striders did not do uncertain a Strider spoke with complete confidence or not at all and Dave wondered why this one incredible dork could make him fail so completely.

“Yeah, I guess I was...” John started as he twisted to look at Dave over his shoulder, “... a little... embarrassed...”

He trailed off, his eyes going wide. Dave suddenly became aware of the fact that he was on his back with legs parted to alleviate the pressure, spread as much as they could be without touching the other boy, and he realized his pose was unintentionally very suggestive and inviting. His sister would surely have some things to say on how accidental it all was and he might admit that he probably did it in a subconscious ploy, but Dave was distracted from the Rosevoice in his head because John was making a very obvious visual sweep of what was laid out beside him. The urge to touch John or touch himself multiplied but Dave managed to keep his hands at his sides, if barely.

“I was embarrassed before,” John said, so soft and low that Dave almost didn’t catch it. John turned so he was facing the other boy. From a more direct angle it was obvious to Dave that he was being ogled. He was still trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with that information when John wrapped a hand around his knee and effectively short circuited most of his brain.

“John, what—“

“I don’t think I’m embarrassed anymore.”

Between that statement and the hand still resting on his knee, John just sitting there like it was the most natural thing in the world to eye your best friend’s hard package and sit there touching his knee instead of taking off like a normal human being, Dave didn’t know what to do. John twisted around a little more, his free hand coming off his leg and to grab god knows what and Dave shook himself out of his stupor.

“Wait,” he said, catching John’s hovering hand by the wrist. “Don’t start anything you’re not going to finish,” and damn if he didn’t hate how _needy_ he sounded.

John let out a long, shaky breath and swallowed hard. He bit his lip like the unintentional ruthless tease he was and made another visual pass of the willing body lying next to him. Dave’s mouth was dry and anything he tried to say stuck in his throat. He waited for John, waited like he always did, hoping that he was right about his best friend, hoping he was right about their chances...

The mattress dipped and then there was a heavy-lidded blue-eyed boy straddling Dave’s hips. John wasn’t quite putting his full weight on the other boy but it was enough that Dave could feel his best friend’s arousal pressing into his stomach. He bit his tongue, bit his lip, tried to hard to swallow the moan that threatened to rip out of him even though John hadn’t touched anything interesting yet. Dave fought his hands which itched to explore his best friend’s body, fought his arms which ached to hold the boy he loved close, fought the hope and fear and hormones so that John could take his time and not get scared off by the intensity of how much Dave wanted him.

Curious, hesitant hands settled on Dave’s chest, travelling slowly up to shoulders tense with the strain of staying still. John rubbed and squeezed in an impromptu half massage. It felt good but Dave was far past the point of that kind of foreplay. It quickly became apparent that John was too when he lay down on his friend and kissed a wet trail across Dave’s jaw while rolling his hips into the toned stomach beneath him. Dave was so hard it _hurt_ and it took every ounce of his willpower not to push John down so he could get some of that delicious friction but he managed to hold out until John murmured an apology and slid down himself. When their hips came together Dave couldn’t help but cry out the other boy’s name.

“Oh, fuck, _Dave_ ,” John practically growled as he pressed down harder. Their undone zippers were uncomfortable so they both fumbled to get their jeans down just enough to get the metal teeth out of the way. John was settling back down on the other boy when Dave was suddenly slapped in the face with bone crushing guilt. He loved John so much it could kill him and he was taking advantage of the sweet, wonderful, trusting boy, he was letting it go too far, he was too much of a coward to let his best friend and his whole world know how much he was enjoying their tryst.

Dave came to a decision. “Wait,” he said, and John froze. Dave forced himself to look John in the eye and accept all consequences for his actions and then he blurted out, “I’m bisexual.”

“W-what?”

John’s eyes were wide as dinner plates and Dave wanted to kiss that shocked expression away but he held back, telling himself that he didn’t deserve to taste John, to hold him that close, a whole armory of metaphorical knives Dave stabbed between his own ribs.

Then John ground his hips down rough and fierce and Dave arched off the bed with a strangled moan. While he was still trying to recover his shades were lifted off his face and then there was nothing between him and that intense sultry blue.

“Okay, so?” was all John said in a tone that made it clear he thought the interruption was silly and a waste of his time. Dave might have laughed in giddy relief but his mouth had better things to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Sushi Roll' is Brocode for frot since you have to roll the chopsticks together before you eat the sushi.  
> (tm) Drake my awesome betarail


	4. Benefits Package

When John treated the news of his best friend’s sexuality with little more than a shrug Dave found it impossible to keep his hands fisted in the sheets where they couldn’t do any harm. He reached up and slid his palms across John’s back, getting his hands up under the Ghostbusters t-shirt for maximum contact with heated flesh. Dave scratched at the other boy’s spine and earned a pleased hum as John slowly rolled their hips together. The self proclaimed coolkid was breathless. He tried to say something smooth, anything, but the words stuck in his throat whenever those beautiful eyes fluttered open full of lust. Dave was torn between letting John continue to set the pace at sweet leisurely torture so they could savor every touch and gasp and moan, or taking control and pounding John into the mattress hard enough to bruise them both until the other boy came screaming his name.

Dave decided on something a little closer to the second option and flipped their positions. He took a moment to admire how good John looked with his back to the pillows and his face the very picture of need, then settled in between his best friend’s legs. He rolled their hips together quicker, harder than before, using John’s neck to muffle his low cries. It was several moments before Dave realized with a sudden wave of dread that John wasn’t making any noise. Panic gripped him, panic that it was too much, too fast, that John was having second thoughts, and he slowed down. Trembling with the effort of controlling himself, Dave propped himself up on his elbows and worriedly surveyed the damage.

It took John several heavy breaths to bring his eyes mostly into focus on the other boy’s face. A few more pants and those deep blues gained an irritated clarity.

“Why did you _stop?_ ” John asked, his tone making it very clear that there better be a damn good reason or he was about to get terse.

Dave laughed, the knot of tension unraveling, and ground down hard. “Just making sure—” John bucked against him, “ _fuck_ —you’re paying attention.”

“Yes I am! Don’t stop again!” John ordered.

The other boy was more than happy to comply with that command. Dave went to work on his best friend’s throat and finally drew forth a vocal cry. John grabbed Dave’s shirt and yanked him up to hungrily devour his mouth. Dave found it impossible to keep from saying John’s name over and over like a prayer as he desperately tried to hold on. He tumbled over the edge first but John wasn’t that far behind; they came undone in a tangle of limbs on a Ghostbusters blanket and if Dave was up for any higher brain function he wouldn’t have been able to think of a more perfect way to have his first shared orgasm.

Dave felt like jelly and he collapsed on his friend. After a few moments spent trying to remember how to breathe he was rolled over and wet mouth was dragging a sparking trail of heat across his neck. Dave’s limbs felt like they were made of lead but he managed to catch John’s face and he brought their lips together for a slow, searing kiss. His skin tingled everywhere John was touching him and he was in awe at how _good_ it was and they never even made it out of their underwear. The thought of having John lying under him, ready and willing and completely naked, the tongue swirling around his mouth swirling around the head of his cock instead...

He swallowed hard and reminded himself that he needed to give John time to adjust before they could get anywhere close to something like that. Dave figured _he_ needed time to adjust before they went any farther than they had that evening. He felt overwhelmed, buzzed, like everything was too much and not enough. The lights were brighter, the sound muffled, the sensation of sheets on his skin dim and the feeling of John pressed against him so _much_ it burned him. Dave knew that riding it out with John would be a lot better than him and his hand, but he didn’t realize that it was going to leave him so blissfully and frighteningly overloaded.

Luckily, John didn’t seem keen on anything more than deep, sweet kisses and mostly-chaste caresses. They did that as they came down from the high until even that was too much and John rolled off to the side. Dave stared at the ceiling and fought to slow his breathing from heavy pants to something that wouldn’t tremble. He looked to the side, eyes on his best friend’s swollen lips, until John turned his head to the side and their eyes met.

From the wreckage that dangerously clueless boy had made of his poker face Dave salvaged his best deadpan and asked, “Well, baby, was it good for you?”

There was a pregnant pause, a moment of loaded silence, and then John started giggling. The solid mass of fear lodged in Dave’s throat disappeared as John rolled back onto him, laughing so hard his eyes were tearing up, and kissed the other boy messily.

“ _No_ , it was completely awful and definitely not amazing,” John said with the thickest sarcasm he could muster, the effect somewhat lost by the giggles sneaking in between the words and it was so breathtakingly perfect Dave’s chest ached. He chuckled, John’s laughter infectious, and brought their lips together for something deep and probing and oh so right. Dave thought he could spend forever in that moment.

Unfortunately there came a point where the cooling wet spots on their underwear got uncomfortable. John scooted back, blushing over his best friend’s prone form, and tugged his pants back up.

“Um... give me a second to get cleaned up and, uh, the bathroom will be all yours?” John said, embarrassed but not at a dangerous level. Dave couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than to watch John slide out of his clothes and take care of cleanup then and there, but even on the tail of afterglow he knew that they needed to take some time to process what just happened. Dave nodded and John reluctantly slid off the bed, quickly retrieving fresh underwear and his pajamas from his dresser and then he was out the door.

Dave propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at himself, at his pants around his knees and the wet spot on his boxers that was both him _and John_ and if the evidence wasn’t right there staring him in the face he probably wouldn’t have believed it. When he moved his hand across the bedspread the texture was enough to send sparks of electricity dancing across his palm. When he heard a car driving past outside it was muffled like he had a pillow over his head. Dave thought that he knew what it was going to be like the first time he fooled around. He didn’t think he was going to lose it this badly. He didn’t know if he was ever going to be able to function properly again with his mind playing an endless loop of John throwing his head back in a wordless cry that _he_ was responsible for. He was the one who made John feel that good.

He got up on legs as steady as an earthquake and tried to do his pants up. His fingers, usually so deft on the turntables, were clumsy as a drugged nerve-damaged gorilla as he tried to work the button. After about a minute he decided it was a lost cause and held his jeans up as he stumbled over to the dresser to get the spare PJs he kept there. By the time he was leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door he’d regained marginal control of his limbs. Dave stood there staring at nothing as he vividly imagined what else he and John could get up to, maybe getting their clothes off the next time...

John walked out of the bathroom and jumped a mile when he saw the other boy standing there. Dave would have been paranoid about what that meant if he wasn’t halfway to a pleasure induced coma. But then John was looking sheepish about jumping, and then he was smiling shyly and fiddling with the ball of dirty laundry in his hands.

“So, um, are we, I mean, uh,” John stammered.

“Uh huh?” Dave asked vaguely, preoccupied by taking in the adorable display. The other boy was wearing the pajamas Rose made for him, the shirt bearing the image of John Malkovich dressed as a Panam style stewardess saying ‘Thank you for flying Con Air’, and that really shouldn’t have been as hot as it was. But down in the corner the stuffed bunny was wearing the pilot’s uniform and seeing it made Dave feel like they were already _together_.

John took a deep breath and got it out. “Are we friends with benefits now?”

For a second Dave thought that John was going to say ‘boyfriends’. After a moment of disappointment he perked up; friends with benefits meant they’d be doing that again. And again and again, if Dave had anything to say about it. John would be able to figure out his sexuality and then once that was settled they could worry about the romantic side of things.

“Yeah, man. That sounds good.”

Dave really wished that he could have summoned up something better than that but it was apparently enough since John beamed before taking off for his room.

A quick shower later and Dave and John were back on the couch watching robots explode. It was like they hadn’t just rutted each other into the mattress, except that it was. It wasn’t awkward to sit on the couch critiquing special effects, just like it was any other day, but at the same time there was a current that ran between them. The air was _charged_ and Dave half expected to smell ozone like after a summer storm. But it wasn’t a bad sort of electricity. Far from it.

It was apparently perfectly okay to hump John into completion and then go downstairs and watch a movie. It felt _normal_. And from the easy way John was laughing and joking around, to the sideways glances that were somehow both shy and distantly hungry, it looked like he felt the same way. There were moments when those intensely blue eyes were clouded over in confusion and deep thought, but there wasn’t any panic or regret. Just introspection.

Time flew by and Dave was lying in his best friend’s bed, the same bed they’d just fooled around on. He wouldn’t have admitted to the blush that darkened his cheeks under pain of torture. Luckily for him he had some leeway since John was still in the bathroom brushing his teeth. Dave took the opportunity to stare at the ratty old bunny with a grin that might have been described as goofy if it graced the face of a less cool dude. The first sort of sexual encounter with John hadn’t sent the boy running, which was a _very_ good sign for Dave’s short term plans of fooling around as well as his embarrassingly fluffy long term plans.

The grin faded as paranoia set in. Dave wondered if he wasn’t just seeing what he wanted to see. He wondered if he pushed things too fast. He wondered if John was feeling anything other than basic bodily lust for his best bro.

“Hey?”

The gentle call snapped Dave back to reality. A quick check revealed that, yes, his ninja sensibilities had reason to feel ashamed because John was standing in the doorway and he never even noticed. Dave roved over and faced the wall, hoping that in the dim light John hadn’t seen the insecurities written on his face.

John folded up his glasses and crawled under the covers. He didn’t say anything and Dave knew that he’d seen something. Dave braced himself for the nosy inquiry, he readied himself for the concerned question, but he wasn’t quite ready for the arm that slid around his waist and the comforting warmth of John’s body spooned up behind him. John’s breath ruffled blond hair and Dave found his stomach doing a flip-flop as his best friend’s strong body wrapped around him. It was easy to forget that John had some nice muscle on his frame, even for Dave; he was pretty sure that the eyeful their gym class got earlier that day was the first half of them knew about John’s impressive biceps and lightly defined six pack. A guy didn’t spend all his school breaks swinging a hammer for Habitat for Humanity without getting toned.

“Ohhhh, Mr. Egbert,” Dave joked in an attempt to make his heart stop fluttering but it just came across as breathless. The warmth of John’s gentle laugh spread from Dave’s neck all the way down to his toes.

“Hmm...” John hummed. Dave wiggled back so that they were pressed even closer together and John hooked a leg over his friend’s and squeezed him tight. “So...” John said, trailing off as soon as he started.

“So?” Dave echoed fuzzily. He felt warm and content with his best friend wrapped around him.

John snorted and the other boy imagined that those gorgeous blues were rolling as hard as they could. “You’re really going to make me drag it out of you?”

Dave stared at the wall as a knot of unease settled in his stomach. He didn’t want to explain the anxious expression that John had clearly seen. “Drag what out?” he evaded and John sighed.

“Come on, Dave, please?” John murmured. “Don’t shut me out. You can tell me anything.”

“I’m not shutting anything.” The mask was a hard habit to break.

John’s answer was a nip to the back of Dave’s neck that was just a little too hard to be sexy.

“What the fuck, asshole?”

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaave, stop hiding whatever it is or I’ll sic your sister on you,” John growled. He softened the threat by kissing the spot he had bitten.

“I’m going to tell Rose that you used the threat of her to try and menace me into submission.”

“She’d take it as a compliment.”

“Yeah, she would.”

“And then she’d talk about how you’re drawing up into your shell because of a lot of really long words that I’m pretty sure she’s just making up.”

“She makes all of that shit up and don’t ever tell her I said that.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“What question?”

“Are you _twelve?_ Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

Dave could tell the difference between John getting eye rolling irritated and John getting legitimately angry. This was the latter. He felt the fight drain out of him. Most of it anyway.

“If you’re going to bitch about it then fine, I’ll tell you so I can get some peace and fucking quiet.”

Dave knew exactly how stupid it was to say that. It wasn’t something he figured out after the fact; nearly-albino rapping gods weren’t careless with words. He thought about it, he decided that saying it was a terrible idea, and then he said it anyway. If forced to give a reason why he poked his best friend with the metaphorical stick—his best friend who was not only stronger but already wrapped around him thus negating any chance he had at using his speed to his advantage—Dave would claim that pride goes before the fall. Pride was part of it, but more than that it was his reluctance to show John any more weakness than had already been seen. Showing weakness was just another name for opening a door and inviting someone in to wreck your apartment and steal all your DVDs.

As he sat there in an uncomfortable headlock Dave felt bad for thinking that about the other boy. As far as he was concerned John was one in a million in that he didn’t deliberately mess with someone’s mental household. He might occasionally knock a soda on the couch in a careless gesture, but he didn’t tear things up on purpose. Beyond that John would always be there to help clean the caffeine and sugar soaked furniture, whether he was the one who caused the mess or not.

Of course in that particular instance cleaning up the mess involved mopping the floor—or bed—with one Dave Motherfucking Strider.

“Let me the fuck go,” Dave ordered. The effect was somewhat lost when his voice was so muffled by the other boy’s arm. He tried to wriggle loose but there was no escaping John Egbert when he decided to put you in a serious headlock.

“Stop being such a defensive ass!” John countered.

Stoic deadpan sarcasm isn’t exactly easy to pull off in a headlock but Dave had grown up in the company of Matt Strider. “Oh yeah, clearly I don’t have anything to defend against. You’re only strangling me.”

It was a good thing Mr. Egbert was in another city because John’s shout could have woken the dead. “For _fuck’s sake_ , Dave, you’re starting to worry me! You’re not even giving me a hint of what’s wrong and don’t try to tell me that it’s nothing because I know you better than that, you, you aggravating _douchenozzle!_ ”

Dave slumped in John’s hold, defeated not by the wrestling move but by the concern and frustration in the other boy’s voice. He would irritate John all the time and quite deliberately, just like he’d try to smother him with a couch cushion or achieve highly complicated body-check-while-sitting-down maneuvers while they were playing video games, because that was part of who they were and how they interacted. This was different. John was starting to get legitimately upset that his best friend was keeping something from him.

“You’re a nosy asshole, you know that?”

John recognized the insult as the admission of defeat it was and loosened his grip. They flopped down as they were before, lying on their sides with Dave as the little spoon. He tried to hold onto his irritation at John but then teeth were scraping across the back of his neck the _right_ way.

“Fucking cheater,” Dave mumbled, but there wasn’t any bite to it. Over the summer John had made a point of mapping out every tender spot that wasn’t covered by clothing. At that moment he was putting all of them within reach to good use. It was as effective as a massage and Dave felt lazily relaxed.

After a while John’s ministrations slowed.

“Mmm... no, I’ll tell you,” Dave insisted as he wiggled back to press into his best friend’s body. “Don’t stop doing that.”

“Spoiled brat,” John murmured, but there was a smile in his voice.

“Your own fault for being so good at it.”

Dave took a moment to enjoy the low, honey smooth chuckle in his ear and then another moment to savor the feeling of John’s lips on his skin. Then, reluctantly, he started talking. He figured out something to say while he was eating a mouthful of affectionately sardonic Con Air pajama sleeve. It was something that John would believe because it was all true, if not the whole truth.

“It’s not bad; it’s just lame as all hell.”

“Mm hmm,” John hummed. Dave could read what John was saying in that hum, that it was okay to talk about feelings and whatnot, that it was just the two of them, that he wouldn’t make fun of Dave for showing his weaknesses.

“Just... worried about what happens after high school. Once we graduate. You’ll go off to architecture school and I’ll go to a sound engineering program and then once we’re set in our careers and busy with life...”

“... Then we’ll still live in the same city and talk to each other every day,” John said with matter of fact confidence. “We’ll never stop being best bros.”

“How can you—“

Another light nip smoothed over by light kisses. “Stop being such a pessimist. I’m not leaving.”

Dave couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Even when we get married? What’ll our wives think?”

“Or maybe a husband, in your case,” John said with a shrug. It really hit Dave that the other boy wasn’t at all uncomfortable over his best friend coming out. “Obviously they’d have to understand or else they won’t be dating material in the first place, right? Being your best friend is a part of me.” John snuggled closer. “That’s not ever going to change, and if a girl doesn’t like that then she’s not worth my time.”

“Nobody would be worth my time if they weren’t okay with you,” Dave agreed. In the privacy of his own head he thought that nobody was worth his time anyway, not when he had a shot with this amazing boy. Sure, it hurt that John was still talking girls, but Dave had a high pain tolerance. John only learned about sexualities besides gay and straight earlier that day, and he clearly enjoyed being humped into the sheets by a guy, so it would just take time.

That’s what Dave kept telling himself.


	5. Sticks and Stones

Dave hummed and tapped out a beat on the cabinet door as he rummaged around in the food and ninja weaponry for a new jar of dip. He was setting up for a movie marathon with John in celebration of passing their first major English test of their final year of high school. He’d already laid out a selection of awful DVDs for John to pick from. The titles included Doom, Little Monsters, Troll 2, the intentionally terrible masterpiece that was Snakes on a Plane, and of course Con Air was at the top of the pile. Dave snuck a few decent films in there, such as Total Recall and Demolition man, but he wasn’t too concerned with what ended up on the screen. He planned on spending as much of the night as possible furiously kissing the other boy, and all signs pointed to John having the same idea.

The whole friends with benefits thing was going very well, in Dave’s opinion. It had been a little over a month since he and John humped each other into the mattress for the first time and things had been progressing slowly and smoothly. Dave had thought that he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back once he got a taste of John’s head thrown back as he came but he found himself comfortable with the leisurely progression. They spent more time on steamy makeout sessions than they did before, and when things got really heated they managed to actually unzip their flies. Neither one had gotten completely naked yet—shirts got pushed up but generally stayed on and waistbands never made it past their knees—and that was one part of the pacing that was starting to make Dave itch. He wanted to see _all_ of John spread out on the sheets as he leaned in and wrapped his hand around the other boy’s dick. It was perfectly hot when they were both half dressed and he got to do that but he wanted _more_.

Dave figured he could nudge things in that direction during movie night, if John was willing. it was one of those rare times when their schedules lined up with his brother’s in the right way; Matt would be in the apartment for the first movie at the most and then he would be off to a gig in the next city. Since he was going to spend the night there Dave and John would be guaranteed to have the apartment to themselves until late the next day, so they didn’t have to worry as much about how much noise they were making. Not that John had to worry much in the first place; he remained very quiet even in the throes of passion. Dave, on the other hand, was constantly trying to find new ways to stifle his moans so that he didn’t broadcast what they were doing to the neighbors. Sometimes he felt it was a little unfair that the talkative goofball didn’t have a problem staying semi-collected when the cool kid was a mess, but then it would just mean so much more when he managed to coax something really vocal out of John.

It took some serious willpower but Dave was able to mentally shelve that line of thinking. He had to keep it together, and in his pants, until certain irony-drenched rappers were out of the apartment.

He was just putting the finishing touches on the movie spread when the sound of someone clearing their throat came from behind him. When Dave turned he didn’t know who he expected to see but it definitely wasn’t his brother. Matt Strider didn’t announce his presence. At least, not in a way that sane people would consider normal. Dave would get an ice cube dropped down the back of his shirt or Cal would suddenly appear at his elbow, that was a normal greeting for their household. If Matt wasn’t feeling the stealth—usually because John was in the vicinity and ‘it’s no fun to make the Egbert kid jump because he’s honest about it, unlike some people’—then he would shout ‘honey, I’m home’ or something equally cliché and loud.

Dave stared and tried to puzzle out why his brother was standing in the kitchen doorway like that. He tensed, ready for some trap like Lil Cal falling from the ceiling and somehow latching onto his head like a facehugging alien. That would be it for him, belly full of plush eggs and when they hatched his chest would explode in a cascade of fuzzy proboscises. He imagined other, more likely avenues of brotherly attack and waited for a clue as to which path this confrontation would take.

But nothing happened. Matt just stood there. Dave wished that his brother would do whatever he was going to do and get it over with. That was how they were; Matt would greet his brother by scaring Dave’s heart rate into the range of tachycardia, Dave would insult Matt’s honor by calling him an embarrassment to the Squirtle Squad, and only then would they relax and talk to each other like semi-normal human beings. The fact that Matt was drawing out that traditional hello was making Dave more than a little unsettled. He kept waiting for the penny to drop.

“So...” Matt mumbled, resolutely looking at the ceiling. He took a visible slow, deep breath and then focused on his brother. The pointy shades were perched on top of Matt’s head and his orange eyes were plainly visible. It wasn’t as though he didn’t take them off around the house or even out among the general population—while both Striders were weary of assholes causing shit over their unusual eyes Matt always had an easier time shrugging it off, an ability which Dave was eternally jealous of—it seemed as though glasses-off was less about taking a break from wearing them and more intentionally leaving them off because something was about to get serious.

Dave wasn’t all that great with serious. Neither was Matt.

The elder Strider tried again. “So, alright, I can pretty much guarantee this is going to suck for both of us so I’m going to get it over with.”

“Don’t tell me; you’re finally making an honest creepy as fuck puppet out of Lil Cal. If you don’t elope in the tackiest Elvis chapel in the country then I’m disowning you.”

Ever since Dave had gotten less uncomfortable with the facts of his brother’s main source of income he’d started implying that Matt and Cal were physically intimate. It was a twisted sort of funny since Dave stopped being so bothered by the smuppet site once he figured out that his Bro wasn’t actually into fuzzy, and so comments about Matt defiling Lil Cal’s virtue became ironic and therefore safe for banter. Dave was well aware of what certain government officials would have to say about the whole arrangement, but he didn’t really care. Finding out that Matt was into actual humans helped kickstart their evolution into two guys who could talk to each other, however poorly, but it was still a far sight less distant than they had been. It was part of why Dave fell back on that brand of insult in the face of this strangely awkward Bro. It was almost a safety blanket.

Dave realized where his thought process was going and resolved to stop listening to anything Rose said in the future.

Matt frowned at the jab but there was no snappy comeback about Dave fondling his collection of dead things.

“What the hell, man?” Dave asked, growing more worried as the seconds ticked by.

Matt huffed in frustration and ran his fingers through his hair, nearly sending his shades toppling to the ground in the process. “I’m trying to be a responsible adult.”

They weren’t the type of siblings who sugar coated things. “You really fucking suck at it.”

“No shit, I suck at it. Have you not been paying attention for the past sixteen years?”

Dave shoved his hands in his pockets and glared. Whatever this was he wanted it over with.

“Okay, lil bro, here it is,” Matt declared with a flourish.

“What?”

“I’m throwing the book at you.”

“What’re you talmph—“

Dave took a hefty paperback to the chest. He caught it on instinct, took a moment to mentally backtrack and figure out where Bro had it stashed before chucking it, and then held the book up so he could look at the thing. First impressions were boring, with a black and white photo, white background, and black all-caps text. Then Dave actually focused on the content.

The photo was of two men kissing.

The title was _The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex_.

Taped to the lower right corner was a business card for a Planned Parenthood clinic.

“They don’t just deal with parenthood-causing activities,” Matt said, as though that was the question that needed answering. “They deal in safe gay sex too.”

Dave looked up, not entirely sure of what he was feeling at that moment but he was feeling a whole lot of it.

The look of expectant doom on Matt’s face wouldn’t have been out of place if he was facing down an oncoming train. “Like I said. This talk is going to suck for both of us but it’s gotta get over with before you go any farther with this guy.”

Dave felt panic rising in his throat. He planned on the first person to know that John had been experimenting to have been told by John himself. He thought they were keeping it sufficiently on the down low that no one would be able to guess what was going on. He wanted to keep this safe for John, both in a ‘no pressure to figure out your sexuality’ sense and a ‘you’re not going to deal with haters unless you’re committed to this’ sense.

“There isn’t any fucking guy,” Dave growled, on the defensive. He held the book at arms length, unsure of what to do with it.

“Better not be any fucking. You don’t have a clue.”

The certainty of that statement made Dave bristle.

“Calm down, will you?” Matt went back to messing with his hair and this time his shades did fall to the carpet of chords. “Fuck, I’m not trying to start a fight.”

Dreading the answer, Dave forced himself to ask, “Who do you even think this guy is?”

Matt shrugged. “I’ve got a list of likely candidates but I don’t know which one it is. I know you’re rolling around with somebody because I’m not an idiot, and I’m pretty sure it’s a guy. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Dave relaxed a fraction. They might spend a lot of time twisting words and meaning until up was down but direct questions were answered honestly.

Matt saw his answer and continued. “Okay, great. This is turning out less horrible than I thought it would be. Right, well, read that book because you don’t know shit about how to not fuck it up. And you and whoever it is go down to the clinic and get STD tests before you do anything that’ll take the condoms you swiped from my sock drawer.”

The mystery of what sparked this ball of uncomfortable solved, Dave came out of baffled and settled into embarrassed and annoyed, with a dash of guilt for stealing the things. He figured that the Strider version of The Talk was bound to go something like this.

“Thanks, great book,” Dave said stiffly. He looked back at it and frowned, pulling the card off the cover. “I won’t be needing this, though. You’ve obviously got the timeline figured so whatever I’ll be up front; I’m a virgin and so is he. Don’t have to worry about STDs.”

“Not all sickness that spreads through sex only spreads through sex,” Matt replied in a tone that was probably meant to sound wise but came off sounding douchelike. “Besides, while you know how many people you’ve slept with you can’t be sure of how many he has.”

Dave’s eyes narrowed. His grip on the book tightened. “I know how many he’s had. No one else. Just me.”

Matt sighed. “Lil bro, just because you like the guy doesn’t mean he’s not lying to you about—“

“He would _never_ lie to me and I know he hasn’t slept with anyone else,” Dave spat back with absolute confidence. He knew that his brother was talking in generalities and that Matt wasn’t trash-talking John specifically, but it still rubbed him wrong.

“... Huh,” Matt said at last.

“’Huh’, what?”

“’Huh’, that seals it. It’s Egbert.”

Dave’s jaw snapped shut with a click.

“Yeah, it’s definitely him. There’s nobody else you trust like that.”

He might have argued, deflected somehow, but there was no arguing that fact and Matt knew it. Dave glared, feeling resentful of how his brother always seemed to be one step ahead of him. “Okay, fine; it’s John.” He glared. “Don’t say a fucking word to—“

Matt quirked an eyebrow. “Do you see something stamped across my forehead that says I’m brain dead? You _know_ I got outed before I was ready to deal with the shitstorm. I’m not about to do that to anyone else.”

Dave relaxed a fraction, and felt a little sheepish. Of course his brother was cooler than that. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

“So... where are you guys?”

“What, you want a play by play? Because that’s not happening.”

Matt dramatically sighed in exasperation. It sounded as though it was only half put on. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve got a good guess as to which base you guys have gotten to, which is why I picked now to toss the book at you. I’m asking how long you’ve been dating.”

“Dating?” Dave stiffened, and he knew his brother saw it. He tried to roll it into a natural looking shrug. “We’re not dating, bro. It’s a with benefits thing.”

The look that crossed Matt’s face was as unexpected as it was unwelcome; Dave didn’t need anyone’s pity. He didn’t need his brother calling him on his emotionally distant bullshit, either.

“Now that this has been established can I get back to setting up?” Dave said as flippant as was physically possible. It quickly became clear that it wasn’t going to happen.

“No strings attached? It isn’t,” Matt said quietly. His tone was uncharacteristically somber, abnormally candid, and it made Dave feel even more on edge. “You want a hell of a lot more from him than ‘with benefits’, don’t you?”

Dave was a thread away from screaming in frustration. Matt rolled his eyes and Dave’s blood boiled.

“Where did you even get that plan from? I thought I raised you smarter than that.”

“You raised me in a shitty apartment full of fuzzy dildos where you never know if you’re going to be a part of some twisted puppet snuff clip.”

In their journey though the foster system the Striders counted themselves fortunate; most importantly they were allowed to stay together, and then they only ended up in one violent home. Dave had angered the foster mother by his existence and Matt made sure the worst of her ire was turned his way. They ended up walking down the street, the Austin air hot and sticky even at midnight, Matt’s voice barely faltering in his quiet rap about the stars they’d barely seen through the city lights. As they made their way to the closest police station Matt held his brother’s hand tightly in his right, his broken left arm hanging swollen and useless at his side.

On that terrifying night they never talked about Matt kept his face stony. Mostly. Plenty of twitches sneaked past the shades—tough or not he was only a fourteen-year-old boy—but he kept it together for his little brother’s benefit.

Just over a decade later and Matt was flinching worse from a few words than he did with his arm twisted the wrong angle. Striking a blow had been Dave’s intent but when he succeeded in drawing metaphorical blood he didn’t feel the smug triumph he thought he would. Mostly he felt like shit. He _knew_ that his brother tried, he really did, but Matt never quite made the transition from an annoying big brother to a parent. Matt didn’t even realize that having the smuppets around was bad until they moved to New England, Dave was collected by John, and Dad Egbert was kind enough to lend him a clue instead of calling CPS.

The hurt look on Matt’s face faded quickly, replaced by the same grim determination he used to use when he was chasing a younger Dave around the apartment so he could pour foul tasting cough syrup down his throat. Dave felt his stomach sink as Matt took a measured step forward. The gloves were off, now.

“Yeah, you’re right; I fucked up royally in the past,” Matt said matter-of-factly. Dave started to protest but his brother held up his hand. “Shut up, we both know it’s true. You needed me to be a grown up and I wasn’t. Can’t change what happened then, but I can do something about what’s happening now. Even though it’s going to suck. But hey, if you want me to be an asshole then I can do that.”

Dave unconsciously held his breath as Matt’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re getting tested. Both of you. Fucking. Period. If you don’t then I can make things difficult for you. Shut up, I’m not going to out him to his dad but I don’t have to do that to make sure you don’t have any alone time with him anymore.” Matt didn’t make empty threats; Dave knew that his brother could figure something out. “And then you’re going to read that book so you don’t screw things up.”

“I’m not a fucking kid,” Dave seethed. He tossed the book on the floor. “I know how this shit works.”

Matt shook his head. “I thought I was the theoretical master of homosexual sex too. Do you remember when you were...” he looked up at the ceiling as he did math in his head. “I was almost sixteen, so you would have been eight. Remember a point in that timeframe when I limped for a week?”

After a moment Dave was able to pick out the memory; it stuck in his mind because Matt had been a different flavor of cagey when questioned about it. At the time Dave had figured that his brother was embarrassed because some kid got the drop on him. In hindsight it was pretty clear where the limp came from.

“So?” Dave asked on the defensive. He felt embarrassed as his imagination did the automatic dance down that particular lane of information, then he felt embarrassed that he felt embarrassed. He told himself that there was no reason to get uptight after fuzzy puppet schlong all over the apartment.

Then he realized that, misguided use of smuppets aside, Matt wasn’t so incompetent that he’d tell his eight-year-old brother about a sex-limp and Dave felt shitty all over again. It didn’t dampen his irritation by much.

“I guess it’s a good thing I know about lube then,” _he was not blushing he was not blushing_ , “so it’s no problem, bro.”

Matt rolled his eyes and snorted. “We used about half of a substantial tub of petroleum jelly. Lube wasn’t the problem.”

Dave had been sure that he was prepared for the eventuality. He had thought that the only thing he’d have to worry about was pushing John too far too fast, but Matt’s blunt honesty shook the foundation. Dave glanced down at the book on the floor and wondered if it would be a useful read after all; he definitely didn’t want to hurt John, and even if he caught first just to be on the safe side if he ended up limping it might scare John away.

“The porn you got off my server isn’t the best teacher,” Matt continued and Dave tried not to look guilty. “That stuff is pretty much bullshit. The Ins and Outs is the real deal.”

It was a tense standoff, as tense as when they were sparring on the roof, but eventually Dave buckled under that knowing orange gaze and he picked the book up off the floor. Matt’s shoulders slumped, almost in relief, and he let out a long breath.

“Fan-fucking-tastic, it’s almost over.” he mumbled. Louder, he said, “In summary: go get tested, read the—“

There was the sound of a key turning in a lock. Quick as lightning Dave dropped the book behind a shelf. Matt rolled his eyes dramatically—it would take both Striders to get the shelf away from the wall without tipping it—but the book on gay sex was safely out of sight by the time John swung the door open.

“Hey guys!” John called cheerfully. Dave felt the tension bleed away at the sight of his best friend’s radiant smile. It was almost enough to counter the aggravation that flared up when Matt shook his head. Dave could only guess that something soft and vulnerable slipped through the mask.

John could taste the hostility in the air and he looked back and forth between the two brothers. “Uh... I didn’t interrupt one of your ninja rap fights, did I?”

The corner of Matt’s mouth twitched upwards. “Not a fight, kid. Striders strife.”

John rolled his eyes and crossed the room to catch Dave in a one armed hug. He kept his arm around the other boy’s shoulders when he turned to say to Matt, “Well I hope you’re not planning on weird ninja strifing now because Dave’s all mine for the rest of the day!”

Matt sauntered over to ruffle John’s hair. “Yeah, I bet he is,” he said with a knowing smirk, remaining completely unfazed by the death glare he had to know was being directed his way from behind those birthday shades.

“We did plan this way in advance so I’ve got clear dibs,” John said teasingly, giggling as Matt made his hair even more of a mess. After ducking out of the way of the offending hand John turned to Dave with a concerned look on his face. “... Dave, are you okay? You haven’t even said hello.”

Dave shook his head and shrugged. “Sorry, man, lost in thought I guess.”

“He’s preoccupied because the two of us just had a serious chat,” Matt commented as he walked past them.

Any and all cool, calm, and collected Dave had vaporized. He whirled to face his brother, losing John’s arm across his shoulders in the process, his teeth gritted tight. He realized the mistake in his instinctive move a second too late; John was staring with shocked worry. Matt stood there, literally tongue in cheek, and let the seconds tick by.

“Shut up, bro,” Dave muttered under his breath. He glanced over at John and then looked away; there was no way he was getting out of this without an explanation and he wasn’t sure if he could lie to John without imploding from the guilt. Which, he realized, was probably Matt’s plan when he mentioned ‘serious talks’. “Don’t you have a gig to get ready for?”

“I can always spare a minute for my lil bro, bro.” Matt replied. Dave just knew he was _trying_ to be irritating at that point. “Hey, Egbert, do me a favor and knock some sense into him since he doesn’t want to listen to me.”

John didn’t seem completely comfortable with the whole situation and he took on a shell-shocked sort of look when called upon directly. “What do you mean? Dave, what’s he talking about?”

Matt steamrolled over whatever Dave was going to say. “I’m talking about the lil sweetie my lil bro’s snagged. It must have been his good looks because his personality’s been a bit lacking in this area. As has his brains.”

John’s mouth shut with a click.

“I’m sure you know who it is even if I don’t,” Matt continued, the white lie as smooth as silk. “That’s not the issue though. Lil bro and the mystery kisser need to go get tested, given that you never know what bugs you pick up out and about. You’re a reasonable kid; bug him until he doesn’t the responsible thing.” He produced an overnight duffel seemingly from thin air and shouldered it. “Now then, enjoy your movies. By the way...” and Matt’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t bother messing with my server again. You won’t figure this password out.”

With that Matt turned and walked out the front door. John stared after him, slack jawed. Dave followed suit, so angry he could hardly see straight.


	6. Safety Blanket

Dave could hardly believe that his brother would _say_ something like that to John. The fact that Matt had the tact to make it sound like he didn’t know that John was the ‘sweetie’ counted for something, the concern he was showing counted for something, but at that moment Dave was too angry to care about any of that. The talk they had was bad but it was just painfully awkward. He could deal with that—not very well but he could deal—but as soon as Matt had brought John into the equation Dave had been hit with such humiliation and betrayal that he couldn’t even think straight.

It wasn’t the plan. No one was going to challenge John on this, no one was going to make him question it, no one was going to force him to fit what he was doing into some stupid narrow binary view on human sexuality. John didn’t need that crap when he was trying to figure things out for himself. And once he did figure it out, once he had time to work through how he felt about everything, then Dave would be the one to push that boundary. To put it all into words and make it all real. Then and only then, when Dave would ask if they could be boyfriends instead of friends who tangled up the sheets sometimes, would John be put on the spot. Only then would John have to _choose_ if it had only been with benefits or if it could be something more.

Whichever way it went, it would be up to John. And if it turned out that John was okay fooling around with a guy but wasn’t comfortable being romantic with one... Dave would respect that. He’d be a heartbroken mess but he would be okay with it. Not the part where John wouldn’t be the last thing he saw before he went to sleep and the first thing he saw every morning; Dave didn’t think he’d ever be able to get over that. But he’d be okay with the knowledge that John made his choice without anything clouding the issue. He wouldn’t get hung up on homosexual or heterosexual or any other box he was trying to put himself in.

If John said no because he didn’t love his best friend that way, Dave would be able to accept that. If John said no because he wasn’t a homosexual, Dave would spend the rest of his life wondering if they might have made it if not for some stupid social convention that said you had to pick a label for your sexuality and stick with it forever.

That was the plan, and as far as Dave was concerned the plan had been shot to hell. He knew that his brother hadn’t been making idle threats. He would see to it that the sleepovers stopped, he’d make them keep the door open when they were at the Strider apartment, he’d start limiting how long Dave could hang out at the Egbert residence—Matt was smart and resourceful and he would think of something. The safe sandbox Dave had set up for John was suddenly full of broken glass and he didn’t know how to fix it.

Whenever a Strider is challenged he doesn’t lie down and take it; he fights back. That’s what Matt taught his little brother and that is what his little brother was going to do. Dave turned without a word to his friend and stormed into his bedroom. He grabbed his laptop and sat down on the edge of the bed, drumming his fingers on his knee as he waited for it to boot up. It didn’t take long—Striders don’t weigh down with inferior electronics and why did he keep thinking of all the things his brother ever told him—and then he was looking at the login screen for Matt’s server. 

What momentum he’d lost picked back up when he saw the recent changes to the page. Lil Cal, in the style of a case study of kawaii desu desu anime chibi, waved a noodley arm in a condescending ‘no no’ gesture. It was pretty good, looking at it from an objective standpoint and ignoring inherent puppet creepiness; sometimes Dave forgot that Matt was actually a pretty decent artist when he wasn’t being deliberately shitty. Next to Chibi Cal’s head were the words “HEE HEE HOO HOO no no otouto doki doki.”

The anger flared back full force. Dave cracked his knuckles and stared at the blinking cursor. The first time he broke the code it was through sheer determination but he didn’t doubt that Matt had installed some new software that deadlocked everything after a certain number of tries. He knew he had to make each attempt count.

He was still working on what his first guess would be when he heard a light knocking. John was standing in the doorway. Not just standing, he was lingering there like he wasn’t sure if he should come in or retreat back to the living room.

Dave swallowed around the lump in his throat and waved John in. “Sorry about that. Family matters. Not your problem.”

_—please don’t get scared please don’t run away please don’t turn me down just because you’re not ready to deal with this please don’t—_

“Daaaaaave,” John sighed as he shook his head. He took slow, measured steps towards the bed and sat down next to his friend. He looked over Dave’s shoulder at the screen. “What are you doing?”

“Cracking the server,” Dave replied all icy confidence and steely nerves.

John rolled his eyes, seeing right through the act like he always did. “Does that really sound like a good idea to you?” he asked uncomfortably.

“Probably not,” Dave admitted. Since his act of defiance wasn’t rooted in being a good idea anyway he went ahead and tried ‘tnuhdrahcir’. Chibi Cal’s hands flew up by his face like he was the kid from Home Alone and a few bars from the Lucky Star opening theme played. The words changed to read “nooooooooo otouto-kun desuuuuuuuuu”.

“If you know it’s not a good idea then why are you doing it?”

Dave got ‘subeteno sensou hagomakasuni motodu itekudasai’ after running Matt’s favorite quote through Translation Party. Chibi Cal did a flip to a piece of the Dragonhalf ending song and “O3O” flashed red and orange.

“Dave, come on, cut it out!”

John sounded genuinely distressed. Dave pressed his lips into a thin line and resolutely looked at the screen. He sat there passively and put up no fight when John reached over and took the laptop away. Dave looked at the floor as John shut down the computer and set it aside and he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the carpet as his friend leaned into him and sighed.

“Dave... are you okay?”

“Cool as can be. Cool as ice. Cool as the arctic circle. Cool as the dark side of Pluto on a particularly chilly winter day. Cool as this place when the rain is freezing to the trees and really that’s only a few degrees off from Pluto, I mean man they tell you about how wonderful autumn in New England but they neglect to tell you that when winter hits you’ll be freezing your balls off and I mean that in a completely literal and non-ironic way. If you’re not decked out fitting for a trek to the north pole then your testicles will straight up ditch your ass and run off to Tahiti to sit on the beach with a fruity drink so alcoholic it’ll—“

“ _Dave_.”

His teeth clicked when he snapped his mouth shut. Dave was babbling, and he knew he was babbling, and he knew that John knew he was babbling. He sagged into the comforting pressure of his best friend at his side and after a moment John slid a comforting arm around his waist. Dave kept his eyes firmly forward and down even as he berated himself for being too much of a coward to meet the other boy’s gaze. John kissed his cheek and Dave’s chest ached. He didn’t want to lose that closeness.

“Sorry. I just... sorry,” Dave mumbled. He let go of the last of his bravado and twisted so he could press his face into John’s neck and take a few deep, measured breaths.

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” John soothed. “I guess we really shouldn’t have been in his stuff, but he doesn’t seem all that mad. At least, as long as we don’t mess with it again.”

Dave nodded without pulling back. John smelled too good for that and there was this nagging voice in the back of Dave’s head that said this could be one of the last times he would get to do this.

“I know you guys have this one-upping thing going on but I think this is one to leave alone. Besides,” John laughed, “you already beat him in this one, didn’t you? He probably never thought you would crack the first password, and then he’s got to do some kind of super creepy anime puppet computer thing to keep you out.”

Dave couldn’t help but grin. He laid a wet kiss on John’s throat and then went back to facing forward with his head resting against his friend’s.

“As for the other stuff...” John chuckled nervously. “I guess that wasn’t exactly the most subtle safe sex talk every but it’s probably as close to it as Bro gets? And even if the delivery... even if that was a little in your face he’s just trying to make sure we’re—you’re—being safe... right?”

“... Yeah...” Dave reluctantly admitted, so low it was barely audible. Doing so kind of hurt, even with John expertly bleeding all of the anger out of him. Reading that book would probably do him some good. However, Dave still thought that his brother was wrong about one thing. “Look, I know that Matt means well in his own psychotic way, but he missed the mark on this one.”

“What do you mean?”

“The STD test.” Dave rolled his eyes and huffed in annoyance. “Good advice in general, sure, but it doesn’t apply here.”

“Why not?”

Dave took a deep, slow breath. “Because we’re only fooling around with each other right now,” and he cursed himself for making that sound like a question.

“Well yeah, I’ve never even kissed anybody but you so far,” John said as though it should have been obvious and Dave fought to keep the relief off his face. “It’s just that I’ve seen stories where surgeons don’t report when they have a disease like that and then they knick themselves during an operation and give it to their patient... wasn’t there a story like that a year or so ago? Some doctor gave their patient herpes, or maybe hepatitis—something that started with an ‘H’—and that person was just stuck with it?”

“... So?”

John squeezed his friend’s middle in a one-armed hug. “Because I had to get my appendix taken out a couple years ago, remember?” 

Dave remembered. John was having sharp pains in his side and his dad took him to get checked out at the ER. John got to stay at the hospital for a day and then he was in and out of the operating room without any complications. It was all completely routine and it had scared Dave to death.

“Well... what if one of the people who worked on me was infected with something?” John asked with some genuine worry coloring the theoretical question.

“You’re not infected with anything,” Dave said with more confidence than he felt. One thing was for certain: if it turned out that someone in that OR had given John something they would live to regret it. “Come on, man, you’d have shown some sign by now.”

“Some of those diseases have really long incubation times! I could have something and not even know it.”

“John, you’re not sick.”

John pivoted where he sat so that he was facing the other boy. With a little urging Dave turned as well. John clasped both of Dave’s hands in his and in all seriousness he said, “I’m probably not, but what if I am? If I was and I got you sick then that would be terrible!”

In spite of himself Dave started scrolling back through his memory trying to find times where he could have picked up something with that kind of staying power. He was sure he was clean, he was pretty sure, but he wasn’t one hundred percent sure.

“Yeah... okay, yeah, that would be... okay, so what are you saying?”

John shrugged. “I think that maybe we should go get tested. Just so we’re sure.”

Dave felt the knot in his gut loosen as he realized that he had been the only one freaking out. John was handling the whole thing rationally. He just wanted to be safe. Dave realized that he was being dumb and selfish when he wanted to ignore the issue.

He hugged his friend and whispered, “Sorry,” in his ear.

John squeezed back and laughed. “You’re a massive doofus.”

“You’re the doofus.”

“Wow, that was a third degree burn right there.”

“Shut up, doofus.”

John gave him a playful shove and then got up off the bed. He stretched—Dave took the opportunity to admire the denim-clad ass conveniently at eye level—and then turned and looked at his friend expectantly. “I guess the best thing to do is to get it over with? It’s no big deal, obviously, but needles still suck and I don’t want to be thinking about how I’ve got one coming for the whole weekend.”

“... You want to go now?”

“Won’t the place still be open? It’s only four.”

Dave nodded and got up. He made a circuit of his room picking up shoes and keys. “You’re right. Let’s go ahead and get this over with. Heh,” he shrugged on his jacket, “guess I was just looking forward to pinning you to the couch. Plus Bro can be a fucking asshole when he wants to be, which is most of the... what?”

John had relaxed once Dave had stopped being angry but some of the wariness had returned. 

“Come on, man, you know you can tell me anything,” Dave said.

“I know I can, it’s just...” he chewed on his lower lip and looked like he didn’t know how to phrase whatever was going through his head. “I just thought that we were, um, I thought that we were just going to do bro stuff today?”

Dave felt his stomach plummet as all the implications of that statement socked him in the gut. He realized that his best friend—the person he loved and trusted more than anyone else on the planet— thought that he thought that the with benefits took priority over the friends part. Standing there looking at John’s lost puppy expression was easily in the top five worst moments of Dave’s life and he felt like the most loathsome variety of creep imaginable. He could write an epic rap about the new depths of jackassery he just reached.

Because he realized that he _had_ been more concerned with the with benefits than the friends. He was so caught up in easing John into the idea of being physical with a guy, so caught up in the way John’s breath would hitch when he scratched across his spine, so caught up in how he was addicted to seeing that after-orgasm glow on John’s face... he’d lost sight of the end-game. Dave didn’t want a fling, he didn’t want just sex; he wanted to be given the chance to grow old with his best friend at his side. He wanted the kind of picturesque suburban life he used to sneer at because he never dreamed of wanting a loving spouse, a pet that wasn’t pickled and preserved, or a lush green yard. Then a short dork with an overbite and a green ghost on his shirt barged into his life and Dave had never been the same closed off dickweed he was once proud to be.

Dave was never at a loss for words, even if it was nothing more than meaningless coolkid posturing, but he didn’t know what to say. John thinking, even for a second, that his best friend was only interested in his body... it was a disaster and Dave didn’t know how to fix it. He didn’t know if he was physically capable of keeping his mouth from running off on a self-defensive ramble about complete bullshit. 

He took a deep breath and started to reach out to slide his hands up John’s arms, but he stopped himself and redirected to a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. Dave desperately wanted to gather John up and kiss it all better but he was paranoid that a move like that would send the wrong message. With his free hand he slipped of his shades and hung them on the collar of his shirt. The wary, uncertain look on John’s face softened when those cherry red eyes came into view.

“I am really sorry,” Dave said slowly and deliberately, choosing his words very carefully. “I shouldn’t have assumed that we would be making out. Your friendship more important to me than anything and I never wanted to make you think that I was only interested in you for your body.”

John looked sheepish. “Sorry, I... yeah. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“No, I haven’t been able to keep my hands to myself lately,” Dave countered. He chanced a smile and a small step closer. “Being your friend is first, always, but I _am_ interested in your hot body. It’s kind of hard not to be.”

In Dave’s humble opinion the blush gracing the other boy’s cheeks was too cute. It was John who took the next step forward. They were close enough that they were almost brushing.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” John playfully scolded.

“It’s not flattery if it’s true,” Dave said without any trace of irony. He really, really wanted to kiss John but he kept himself in check. “For real, though, I’m sorry I got kind of fixated.”

John rolled his eyes. “You can stop saying you’re sorry. It really is okay.”

“No, it’s not. Tonight is going to be all about being bros. I got caught up in how good of a kisser you are but thinking about it now... I miss it. Just hanging out and stuff. I think I miss it.” It was the truth. As much as Dave had been looking forward to pinning John to the couch and nibbling at his neck he found himself looking forward to an old-fashioned sleepover.

John smiled. “Sounds good. But the test first?”

Dave nodded and grabbed his keys. He was just about to open the apartment door when John stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Yeah man?”

There was a sly look in John’s eyes, something which was usually a sign that a prank was about to go down, but it was tempered with something almost shy. He bit his lip and grinned. “Just so you know... it’s not as though I don’t enjoy it too.”

“Enjoy what?”

“When you’re straddling me and doing things with your mouth that should be illegal.”

Dave had to take a moment to forcefully stop his imagination from running away with that statement.

John laughed. “Fooling around with you is a lot of fun. A _lot_ of fun. And I don’t want to stop doing that. I just wanted a break for tonight, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay, man.” Dave brushed the back of his fingers over John’s cheek and belatedly realized that his shades were still hooked to his shirt. He put them back on and John shook his head.

“You do know that you don’t have to wear those everywhere.”

Dave adjusted where they sat. “You mean that they are not in fact surgically grafted to my face? Oh dear, you’ve learned my horrible secret.”

John leaned in and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to the other boy’s lips. “I’m just saying that you have wonderful eyes and it’s a shame that you hide them all the time.”

Dave dealt with that statement by not dealing. He ducked his head and opened the door. “Okay, so: test, movies, junk food coma?”

John let the matter drop. “Sounds good.”


	7. Chlorine Green

When the two boys got their blood work back Dave was tempted to wave the twin conclusions of ‘all clean’ in Matt’s face, but he decided that would be childish even by their standards. Plus he didn’t want to give his brother the satisfaction of knowing that the heavy-handed, awkward, threatening advice had been followed. So Dave crumpled up the results and tossed them into the kitchen trash, a move which he deeply regretted the next day when he shuffled to the fridge for breakfast and saw the page taped to the door. The words “A++ best student”, along with a big smiley face and about three dozen curly hearts, were scrawled on it in with a glittery hot pink marker.

The younger Strider thunked his head against the fridge and privately admitted defeat; he wasn’t going to best his brother in this one. He also felt the knot of tension, the one centered around Matt’s threat to make things difficult, ease in his chest. A few days later when the book about gay sex ended up on his bedroom floor Dave squirreled it away for later reading and then fistbumped his bro the next time they passed each other. He caught the slightest approving nod and a hint of relief in Matt’s expression. They didn’t talk about what was going on with John but Dave got the impression that while his brother wasn’t going to push the issue he was ready and willing to have that conversation.

Dave considered it but anytime the opportunity to talk came up he let it pass. He knew that it would probably be the better idea in the long run, however agonizingly uncomfortable the discussion was bound to be, but Dave just wasn’t to the point where he could open up like that to anyone except his best friend. Plus, he knew that if he laid out his plan that Matt would tell him it was stupid or give him another pitying look and that would just lead to another fight. More than that, Dave didn’t want to have to try and justify his plan. Deep down he knew that he probably would have done things differently if he could go back in time, but he was past the point of no return.

John continued to take the whole STD testing fiasco in stride; it was an easy calm which Dave was a little jealous of. The blue eyed boy wasn’t surprised when their tests came back negative but he was still relieved to know for sure. They opened their papers in the Strider apartment with all the hushed secrecy of little kids trying to sneak a peek at their Christmas presents. Once he read his John had glanced up and as soon as he saw the serious look on his friend’s face he had busted out laughing. Dave had been caught between annoyance at being called on his uncool worry and that warm glow he felt whenever John saw through the mask.

In the end he went with dragging John to the linoleum and giving him the noogie of a lifetime. During the ensuing tickle-fight they ended up knocking over two chairs and a trashcan.

For Dave, that wrestling match really drove home how much he’d been neglecting the friends part of their friendship. He resolved to remedy his mistake and kept his hands to himself—any fear real or otherwise about John getting skittish had absolutely nothing to do with that decision—and for the next couple weeks Dave did just that. He didn’t try to force anything because he felt that doing so would be underhanded and cheapen the whole thing they had going; he just held back on the hormones.

Sometimes, when he was least expecting it, this creeping nagging thought would ambush Dave. He would find himself wondering if he was doing the right thing. He told himself that he was just offering John a new perspective, that he had been careful not to do anything John hadn’t been okay with, but sometimes Dave worried that deep down his intentions weren’t all that pure.

Whenever those doubts crossed his mind Dave pushed them away. What he was doing was logical, he would tell himself, letting John experiment with someone safe so that he wouldn’t dismiss the idea of dating a guy out of hand. What he was doing was helping both of them figure out their sexualities. John had made all the major steps and Dave was sure they’d never gone outside his comfort zone. Lately, though, a calm and measured voice had joined the chorus and it was harder to drown out than the others. Dave imagined that it sounded like his sister. It would certainly be like Rose to point out that deep down he knew how foolish his plan had been and that he was terrified that he was in too deep to back out without backlash.

Dave had practice tuning out Rose’s live action psychological dissertations, so he managed to tune out her surrogate voice. 

Over the next couple weeks Dave was very, very good. He kept his hands firmly to himself. It was actually easier than Dave thought it would be and he didn’t examine that too closely because deep down he already knew that the creeping guilt was helping. Even with that holding back was very difficult at points, particularly since the school had just gotten done renovating its indoor swimming pool so the gym teachers thought they needed to turn everyone into ducks in order to make the investment worth it. After the fourth day straight of having to suffer through an hour of John Egbert shirtless and dripping wet Dave had just about lost his mind. He tried to focus on being a dick and splashing Jade every chance he got. The plan quickly backfired when she enlisted Rose’s help to get revenge; the girls took advantage of Dave’s limited peripheral pool vision (he wore crappy swimmer goggles in lieu of his shades) and staged a daring and successful mission which involved a clever distraction and a pitcher of ice water being poured into the front of his trunks. 

John was still snickering an hour later as they walked into the Strider apartment. “Oh, maaaan, that was a _great_ prank. I am so proud of my sister right now, you have no idea.”

Dave glared at his best friend murderously. “Wow, bro, thanks for the sympathy. I only had an iceberg poured down my dick.”

“I winced when it happened! Besides, you deserved it, fuckmunch. Jade didn’t want to get her hair wet since it takes it apparently takes forever to dry.”

“She should join the short haired club with the cool kids and also you.” Dave shoved the other boy and John toppled onto the couch, giggling all the while. “The punishment did _not_ fit the crime. Do you have any idea how cold that water was because I’m pretty sure it was close to absolute zero.”

“You’re such a wuss for cold,” John teased. “You’re so South. You’d think after, geeze, what has it been, six or seven years? You think you’d have developed a tolerance for New England winters.”

“Easy for you to say; when you moved to Skaia you stayed on the same latitude.” Dave threw his damp towel at his best friend’s head. “And I’m not a wuss and I’m not ‘South’.”

John snagged him by the shirt and yanked him down to the couch for a tussle. “You are so South! After you shrieked like a nine-year-old girl—“

“I didn’t shriek, dumbass,” Dave mumbled as he tried to put his friend in a headlock.

“—you got all _Texas_ when you were yelling at Rose and Jade.”

Dave hesitated and ended up on the losing side. He shoved the other boy in the chest and John correctly interpreted it as the ‘let me up, jackass’ shove versus the ‘just try and pin me’ shove. Dave sat up and tried to think of anything to say, but he felt too self-conscious. Kids will pick on each other for anything, and being the red-eyed foster care reject was bad enough without adding an accent to the mix. It wasn’t that thick to begin with, given that a slow drawl and rap battles don’t mix, but he’d still had to work to smooth out what he did have.

John slung an arm around the other boy’s shoulders. “Noooooo, don’t be that way. Your accent is great. I like it when you get all Texas!”

Dave decided to ignore his best friend’s apparent insanity and focus on the insult.

“If at any point a noise akin to the shriek of a nine-year-old girl escaped my lips it’s because our psychotic sisters turned me into one. I think my balls are still in the vicinity of my liver.”

John rolled his eyes. “ _Wuss_ ”

“They made me a eunuch and my own best bro taunts me in my time of need.”

“If you’re really worried about it there is something you can do.” There was a sly sparkle in John’s eyes that Dave was sure he imagined. “You just have to warm it up.”

However irritating the ice water stunt had been it had been a big help in the not having to fight off a hard on department, but it all came rushing back. Dave felt his cheeks go red and he leapt up before John could see what kind of effect his innocent suggestion had.

“You’re right; I just need a hot shower,” Dave said, just a little too high pitched. He made a beeline for the bathroom all the while cursing his momentary lapse into flustered blushing. In spite of his situation Dave decided on a cold shower; he figured he might never unshrivel but he’d have a better chance of keeping his hands to himself if he didn’t get warmed up. He was being _good_ , damn it, and even though John and his unintentional innuendo were sabotaging the plan that left himself unmolested, Dave was going to continue being good even if it killed him. He was starting to feel that death by sexual frustration was the likely scenario at that point.

It wasn’t just sexual frustration, though, and Dave reminded himself of that whenever he felt the guilt creep back. Fooling around was wonderful and he missed it, but what he missed even more was cuddling afterwards. He missed sprawling out on John’s lap and demanding affection by doing an ironic impression of Jaspers when the cat wanted petting. He missed being wrestled to the floor and then being surprised by slow, sweet kisses. He missed getting hot and heavy not only because it felt good but because all of John’s attention would be focused solely on him. Having those intense eyes fixed on him and only him was as much of a turn on as anything John did with his hands.

But he was being good, so he made himself think about anything but that as he shivered under the cold spray. He was going to keep his distance and then he was going to start the slow seduction over, except this time he’d keep in mind that they were _friends_ with benefits and not just fuckbuddies.

With his hair shampooed and in no danger of going chlorine green Dave ninjaed his way from the bathroom to his bedroom; he was sure his hormones were quelled but he wanted some layers of fabric between him and his crush before he tested that theory. Once he was standing in the open doorway he called that the shower was free and John called back that he’d be out in a few minutes. Dave tossed on some old, comfortable clothes and set himself to the necessary but menial task of managing his online stores and finances. By the time he heard the bathroom door open again he had a firm grip on his lust.

Dave spun in his computer chair when he heard his friend enter the room. The greeting he was about to offer died a harsh death on his lips when he saw that John was wearing nothing but a towel.

 _Deep, even, not-at-all shaky breaths_ , Dave told himself.

 _Damn, that chest_.

_Fuck, no, I’m being good, fuck fuck fuck—_

“Did you forget a change of clothes? Again?” Dave was very proud that his voice didn’t waver or break. He realized that his shades were still in the living room and he felt as naked as a certain someone who was unwittingly doing unspeakable things to a cool kid’s self control. He got up and started rummaging through his dresser. “Hold on, I think I have some PJs you forgot here a month ago...”

Dave turned around with the promised clothing in hand and found himself face to face with the other boy. The intoxicating scent of John’s aftershave hit him like a wave and his mouth went dry. Dave stumbled back as his friend stepped forward and then there was a drawer handle digging into his back and two firm hands caressing his hips. With the clarity and violence of a bolt of lightning it hit him: the innuendo Dave thought was an accident was very, _very_ planned.

John had briefly channeled unflappable but that uncrackable mask didn’t last long. He fought the loss for all of three seconds and then burst into a fit of giggles.

“You should _see_ the look on your face!” John managed between fits of laughter. He bumped their foreheads together. “At first I thought you were playing it cool but you were just being the densest person ever. Neutron stars have nothing on you.”

The dork levels in the room were skyrocketing and the bad-science-pun-o-tron was flashing over into the red. Dave took a moment to consider the possibility that there was something wrong with his best friend, something which only momentarily distracted him from the proven fact that there was definitely a few wires loose in his own brain. John started out like something out of a romance novel or a porn movie—hair dripping, skin damp, thin towel slipping down to reveal another tantalizing inch of flesh begging to be touched—and the sight had been more than hot enough to make Dave’s breath catch in his throat. Then that image broke away with easy laughter and nerdy puns and Dave forgot how to breathe. Nothing had ever been more attractive than John Egbert nearly naked and snorting at his own lame joke.

John managed to smother the giggles. The mirth in his eyes was joined by the same sly look Dave had seen in the living room, a look he understood the second time around. Dave was rarely at a loss for words but nothing he thought up sounded good even in his head so he kept his mouth shut. On instinct he slipped his arms around the firm body pressed against him. Dave slid a palm up the other boy’s spine and after poking through the sparking wreckage of his shorted out brain he managed to feel smugly pleased at the way John shivered. 

“Mmmm,” John hummed. “Now you’re getting the idea... seriously though, could you have missed the point any harder? I don’t think you could’ve if you tried.”

Dave was still having trouble processing anything with his best friend leaning against him like that—he was pretty sure that the only thing keeping that towel in place was the way their bodies were pressed together—but after almost eighteen years living with a certain insane big brother Dave had developed some reflexes when it came to challenges. However, even though wrestling a naked John was something he dreamed about and frequently at that, Dave wasn’t feeling a physical confrontation at that moment. He decided on a verbal counterattack and kept the physical at lightly stroking John’s back.

“You’re the one who wanted to slow things down, bro,” Dave pointed out. The words were meant to drip with sarcasm but it came out more like serious question.

John huffed. “Slow down, maybe, but not stop completely! Not even really slowing down, just, sometimes doing stuff we used to do without the kissing.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with a smile. “I really like the kissing. I want to keep doing the kissing.”

“... I like the kissing too,” was the brilliant response Dave came up with, but it seemed to work anyway. John smiled and then leaned in to demonstrate how much he liked the kissing. It was warm and slow and thorough and Dave felt as though his chest might burst.

Then John dragged his wet lips across the other boy’s jaw and Dave’s knees went weak.

“Mmmmm. I bet you don’t like this towel very much,” John whispered, his mouth against Dave’s ear.

“D-don’t be ragging on the rag, bro,” Dave replied. He mentally cursed himself for the stammer, but his self-directed ire felt dim and far away. Up close and personal was the growing heat between his legs and the hardness he could feel pressed against his hip.

“You’ve never seen me completely naked before,” John murmured. Dave decided that it had to be illegal for an Egbert to say anything so smooth. “At least, not in this context.”

Dave slid his hands lower. He brushed against worn terry cloth. John’s fingers closed over his and Dave’s hands were lifted away.

The cheated, petulant whine wasn’t exactly the coolest noise to ever come from a Strider’s golden vocal cords.

“What the fuck?” Dave growled. His hands were placed high up on his friend’s waist and then John was sliding his palms up under Dave’s shirt. “I don’t get to cop a feel but you do?”

“I’m at a disadvantage,” John cheerfully shot back as he reached down to rub between the other boy’s legs.

“The fuck you are,” Dave muttered through a moan. It was hard to hold onto his irritation when John was doing things like that.

“Ehehehe... how about a trade?”

“Anything as long as I can _touch_ you,” Dave begged. His hands, still where John had put them, twitched with his pent up longing. He wanted to drive John crazy but he didn’t want to do anything outside of the unknowable boundaries.

John looked a little surprised at the force behind the other boy’s plea, but he recovered quickly. The smirk was somewhat undermined by the way John was panting for breath and biting his lip in want, but he was no less resolutely in control as he leaned in to whisper his request. Dave thought it was a good thing that John had a handle on the situation because he felt like he was spinning out of control in the best possible way.

Dave felt hot breath on his cheek and then his earlobe was being teased with light, wet nibbles. “Oh god,” he groaned, “fuck, what’s the trade?”

“How about all of your clothes for the towel?”


	8. Can I?

It wasn’t until he was down to socks and boxers that Dave realized that he should have made it a show instead ripping off his clothes off as fast as he could. He stopped, suddenly embarrassed and unsure, and looked back at his friend who was still leaning against the dresser. John wasn’t exactly drooling in awe but he wasn’t apathetic either. He was curious and appreciative and absently groping himself through the towel as he stood there waiting.

Dave figured it was too late to do a striptease and fought off what scraps of clothing remained. Then he pulled John forward and did his absolute best to kiss the other boy breathless and John gave back as good as he got. In outright _defiance_ of the way they were tussling for dominance the towel managed to cling to John’s hips. On the one hand it caused an interesting, delicious friction against Dave’s hardening arousal, but on the other it was a barrier between him and what he really wanted to touch. Dave got fed up with the towel’s perseverance and yanked it loose. When it fell to their feet they both tripped over it and nearly toppled to the floor, but they managed to fall into each other and between the two of them they stayed mostly upright.

John stepped away and glanced over his shoulder so he could pinpoint where the offending towel had landed. When he looked back they both froze as their eyes locked and then they both took in the sight of the other. Dave drank it all in. John wasn’t ripped by any means but he had some nice definition due to . Dave had seen his friend shirtless plenty of times but there was a marked difference between shirtless in swim trunks and shirtless in _nothing_. Neither clothing nor context was getting in the way of appreciating the way those abs melded into those thighs. John was already showing his arousal, just enough for his dick to lift a few degrees. Objectively Dave could admit that the human penis looked goofy as hell bobbing around with every breath, but at that moment he didn’t care if it was the silliest sight in existence because he knew that he was the first person to ever— _ever_ —see John like that.

Some niggling section of Dave’s brain focused on how John’s answering gaze wasn’t quite as ravenous, but he shut it down. It wasn’t a surprise, he told himself, because while he was banking on John being more bisexual than straight Dave would hazard a guess that John was more heterosexual than homosexual. Which was fine, it didn’t hurt the plan at all, and Dave stood fast and refused to let his doubts come into that moment. What he was in the middle of was a big fucking deal and he didn’t want any distractions. He just wanted to look. He just wanted to _feel_.

Dave closed the gap and kissed his friend. He was hesitant and scared because he felt as though the thing between them was too fragile to last a minute. It was like a perfect spiderweb stretched across a doorway; beautiful and begging to be destroyed. Tiny filaments stronger than steel but still so easy to snap, the geometry so easily turned to chaos by a gentle breeze. Then John’s lip got pinched between their teeth and he leaned back laughing and running his lip over the sore spot, Dave lunched forward to kiss it better and that time they couldn’t keep their balance, they fell in a controlled dive to kneel on dirty shirts and rejected photos while they grabbed and kissed and touched... then it felt indestructible. Nothing could break them. They were dented and scratched and worn down to the skin like one of those cars people are talking about when they say they don’t make them like they’re used to. An aerodynamics nightmare with fins thrown in for good ironic measure and the paint cracked and faded yet still recognizable as a truly horrific color, but no matter how ugly it was no one could deny that the thing was a tank. Dave’s opinion on the matter spun wildly between the two extremes and he couldn’t tell which one was true, couldn’t tell if the thing between them was titanium or if it was glass, and the dilemma was making him feel dizzy.

John peeled a three hour exposure of a construction site off of his arm. It was a completely irrelevant motion but for some reason it snapped Dave out of his nosedive. He still couldn’t tell which one they were, he honestly couldn’t pick out if they were frail or durable, pretty or an eyesore. Dave just knew that he _wanted_ it.

Dave stood up on wobbly knees and pulled the other boy with him. He pushed John back, kissing him the whole time, until they hit the edge of the bed and dropped down in a jumble of limbs. They wrestled for dominance, taking it in turns to surge forward aggressively and then to fall back in pleasant submission. 

Back to the sheets, John looked up with a sloppy grin. “Is it getting too hot for you?”

Dave rolled his eyes and sat on his heels between the other boy’s splayed legs. “Sounds like you’re getting... cocky,” he said in response to the challenge.

“Ehehehe... maybe.” John slid a hand across his stomach and squeezed himself. Then he sat up and squeezed the other boy. “How about you?”

Dave bit his lip. “Not enough.”

“Hmmm?”

He grabbed a handful of dark hair and tugged John’s head back. “It’s not hot _enough_.”

“What are you gonna, ah, got any ideas for fixing that?” John said, stumbling over his words. His mouth was slack and his eyes dilated. He looked hungry. Dave felt his mouth go dry.

“... Yeah. Ideas.”

Dave nudged and shoved his friend around until they were sitting side by side on the edge of the bed. John went distractingly affectionate and started kissing and nuzzling at the other boy’s neck. Dave basked in the gentle touch for a minute before sliding around to stand in front of his friend. He leaned down to nip and suck at John’s lips, slowly lowering himself to his knees. It put Dave eye level with John’s chest, a view which he very much appreciated, and as John wound his fingers through blond hair Dave left a sizeable hickey on a firm pec. Once he felt that his territory had been properly marked, Dave sank down all the way, kissing his way across John’s stomach as he did. 

It wasn’t until he was fully settled that John’s eyes widened in realization. Dave swallowed hard and tried to summon up all a clever quip. _From the look on your face you’d think no one ever gave you a blowjob before. I’m the one down on my knees but you’re the one who’s going to beg. Ready to let me worship you?_ Dave had a hundred poetic ways to ask this filed away and all he had to do was pick one and actually say it out loud.

What came out was a breathless, “Can I?”

John gulped, bit his lip, and nodded.

Dave kept his eyes trained on John’s, looking for any sign that the attention was unwanted, as he closed his hand around the stiffening length bobbing just under his chin. John’s eyelids fluttered but they stayed open, transfixed by what was going on in his lap. Satisfied that he wasn’t in immediate danger of spooking the other boy, Dave licked his lips and looked down.

He then had to sit and blink for a second because he’d managed to forget that John wasn’t circumcised.

Dave _knew_ and all—he’d seen John’s cock before, had his hand around it plenty of times in the past few months—but it was suddenly a lot more apparent when it was a couple inches in front of Dave’s nose. He knew, intellectually, that it wasn’t a big deal. It was just that John’s parents decided that the third trimester was a good time to go traveling so their son had been born in a country where circumcision wasn’t the standard, because with the Harley family everything had to be a complicated production often involving travel to places no one’s ever heard of and absurdly cutting-edge technology. It was still a penis and it was still going to work the same as Dave’s... though he was starting to wonder if there was some difference in sensitivity or sensation that needed to be taken into account. Clinically, Dave lightly felt along the last couple inches with both index and middle fingers. He wondered if the extra length of loose skin had any feeling, or if pushing his tongue under it was a bad thing... he tried to remember if there was anything in the book about circumcision or the lack thereof but he couldn’t recall any mention.

“Uhm... Dave?”

He looked back up and found John staring at him with a heated yet confused expression on his face.

Dave then proceeded to crown himself the eternal master of eloquence by defensively blurting, “Your dick is weird.”

As soon as the words left his mouth Dave was beyond horrified. He was nervous and jittery and it was coming out in the worst possible way and _he did not mean to say that_.

“Well, your face is weird!” was John’s comeback. He pouted and poked Dave in the forehead. “I can’t believe you’d _say_ that.”

He sounded hurt. Dave’s intense self-annoyance turned into a panicked scramble. “Oh man, I’m sorry, I just—“

The corner of John’s mouth twitched up. Dave glared. John cracked a smile and started giggling.

“You’re _seriously_ going to prank me while I’m blowing you?”

John’s giggles got quieter and significantly more nervous-sounding. “I, um,” he swallowed hard. “I really don’t see any blowing, except maybe the blowing of you never stopping talking!”

“That burn was so weak it’s sub-zero,” Dave shot back. He was feeling a little steadier with John showing nerves, a little more like he had the upper hand. He looked up and schooled his features into his best seductive expression. “What’s wrong, sailor?”

John stared at the other boy incredulously. “Did you just call me sailor? _Sailor?_ Really?”

Without taking his eyes off his friend’s Dave leaned down and gave the underside of John’s cock a long wet lick. At least, that was the plan. Since he wasn’t looking Dave ended up catching the side in a glancing blow that barely counted as a caress. Still, Dave was glad that he had decided to keep his eyes on John’s. Nearly faceplanting into the other boy’s hip wasn’t exactly graceful but Dave got to see the look on John’s face when a tongue touched his cock for the first time.

The second time was more on target and a strangled groan escaped John’s throat. Dave took a slow, deep, shaky breath. He ran the tip of his tongue across his upper lip and John’s eyes hungrily tracked the movement.

Dave didn’t want to look away for a second but he realized that he’d have to make that sacrifice so he could actually see what he was doing. He looked back down and decided that the best way to figure out any difference in sensitivity would be to learn on the job. He licked base to tip like he had originally planned and then closed his lips over the head. _Just_ the head. In his fantasies Dave would already be pressing his nose to John’s stomach, and if it hadn’t been for the book on gay sex then he probably would have tried. However, even he couldn’t ignore the repeated warnings—in large, bolded font on some pages—that doing so would be a very bad idea. While successfully deep throating John would have been extremely sexy, gagging probably wouldn’t have the same effect. The latter was the more likely so Dave struggled to stay sensible and take it easy the first time.

One of John’s hands slid up his arm and came up to squeeze and knead Dave’s shoulder. The other lazily drifted up and down his neck. As always Dave wanted to revel in any caress John gave him but he had a job to do. He still wasn’t sure what to do with the extra skin clinging to the head of the dick in his mouth. He still couldn’t quite believe there was a dick in his mouth to begin with.

Dave started swirling his tongue around the tip, using the side of the muscle more than anything, and John made some quiet appreciative sounds in response. Dave had figured that it would be pretty much impossible to give a _bad_ blowjob, kind of like how it was pretty much impossible to have bad pizza. Even if it was bad, it was still okay. As long as he didn’t make John bleed—and even though he was not too sure of his theoretical skills Dave was confident that he could avoid bloodshed—it should at least rank as an okay blowjob. But, in spite of all that reasoning, it was still extremely reassuring to have those little signs that John was in fact enjoying himself. While Dave would settle for being merely decent at oral sex the first time he was hoping for something a little more mind-blowing. The trick was figuring out what that little more mind-blowing was.

The foreskin tugged and shifted slightly due to the motion of Dave’s tongue, and he found the sensation strange. There was all this surface area that wasn’t even really attached to the shaft underneath. Then he got weirded out by being weirded out because he had dreamed and fantasized about this for ages and at no point in those dreams and fantasies did Dave ever fathom that he would be so thrown by something like an uncircumcised penis. Dave got to thinking about it and decided that the whole idea of circumcision was pretty strange and, in reality, _he_ was the one with the weird dick that some intern had at with a pair of scissors. Then he realized that he’d managed to distract himself from the kind of important task at hand and had unwittingly slowed his ministrations. Dave decided that he needed to get over the whole issue. He also decided that he needed to do something else because he was sure he could do better than touching bunched up skin with the side of his tongue.

Dave licked up the side of the shaft a few more times while he tried to figure out what moves he could do that were both hot and not likely to cause a terminal malfunction in one or both of them. Coming up empty, he turned his attention back to what was going on in the hope that he’d find some inspiration. 

John’s cock was swelling and the head was peeking out from behind the hood of the foreskin. Dave leaned back for a better look, observing with fascination. He decided that it was cool that he was circumcised and that John wasn’t; it would make for an added bit of interest when they had their pants off. Dave bit his lip against a groan as he pictured John sliding between his legs with an expression of curiosity and lust. 

His hand was loosely curled around the base of John’s dick, just to steady it, and Dave squeezed gently and started jerking the other boy off nice and slow. He let his other hand drop to his lap to rub at his own aching cock. The steady stream of low hums and quiet moans coming from John was suddenly derailed by a deep, trembling gasp. Dave glanced up and his own breath hitched at the heavy-lidded stare he was receiving. He once again tried licking John’s dick while their eyes were locked and that time he was squarely on target. The head was silky smooth against his tongue and Dave felt a jolt of pleasure shoot straight to his groin when John’s eyelashes fluttered at the touch. Dave had already resigned himself to keeping his eyes down for most of that first time, but he eagerly looked forward to a time when he had a little more practice and could maintain a smoldering gaze while he took John to the hilt. 

Dave leaned in for another lick across the head. He’d tried his own come on a few occasions so that he’d know what to expect when he finally got between the other boy’s legs, so the taste wasn’t a surprise. It was bitter and not a flavor he’d advocate anywhere else, but he didn’t think it would be a major roadblock to successful oral sex. The precome, at least, wasn’t as present as he thought it would be. It was salty but the taste was diluted by Dave’s saliva. He guessed that the main event would be a little trickier and, with a wave of disappointment, Dave decided that trying to swallow the first time would probably be a bad idea. He hated having to be sensible, but he knew that in the long run it would be the better option. However much he hated being timid it was better than either of them remembering John’s first blowjob as the time Dave choked on semen and threw up in the trashcan. 

There were a lot of preconceptions that Dave was reevaluating. He’d thought that giving a blowjob would be about being claimed, which he was completely okay with as long as it was his best friend doing it, but at that moment he wasn’t feeling particularly claimed. Dave felt _empowered_. John was _his_. No one else had ever kissed him, no one else had ever rutted against him, no one else had wrapped a hand around that wonderful uncut cock, and no one else had ever tasted the fluid beading up on the tip. John was letting him do all that. John was giving Dave his firsts.

That was a heady thought. The room felt hot as a sauna, hot as the worst Texas summers without an air conditioner, hot as lava, and Dave could almost swear that he saw steam rising from their sweat damp skin. He glanced up and caught sight of the darkening bruise he’d left on John’s chest and felt a sudden and powerful urge to see a tattoo marking John as his. It almost scared him, how intense the desire was, but then Dave thought about the spot on his collarbone that twinged a bit after John had nipped him a little too hard. Thinking of it as not just one tattoo, but two, was in some ways even scarier in its permanence, but it wasn’t as lopsided as the first thought. If they both got tattoos that would be better, Dave thought. Because he was letting John have all of his firsts too. They were _sharing_ them.

It was an odd time for an epiphany, sitting there staring at John’s belly button, but Dave realized that he needed to adjust his view of the relationship. Feeling almost sheepish, he realized that he had been unconsciously putting John into the ‘girl’ half of the equation, which didn’t even make sense because the girls he knew were tough as nails. Rose would have a field day with that statement and the conversation would probably involve a ball of yarn bouncing off his head, and Jade would probably fondle some exotic type of pliers, and that was part of why the girls didn’t know about the extent of their brothers’ physical relationship. At least, that’s why Dave hadn’t told them; he felt dumb enough in moments like that without their help.

Dave decided that philosophical bents could get to the back of the line. His first priority was drawing out one of those rare, loud moans from John’s throat.

He looked back down and used the pad of his thumb to wiggle the edge of the foreskin back and forth. John was hard but he still wasn’t quite fully erect so the tiniest bit of slack still available between the head of his cock and the skin. Emboldened by his previous train of thought and the fact that no one else had ever seen John like that, Dave took a risk and slid the tip of his tongue under the tightening skin.

The strangled noise breaking from John’s lips might have been the other boy’s name. Dave moaned in response and did it again, reminding himself that he couldn’t get too aggressive. By that point he’d established a slow rhythm pumping the base with his hand. It seemed like that might have been cheating, like it was a handjob with a bonus bit of tongue instead of a proper blowjob, but Dave decided that cheating was okay if it made John squirm like that. Before long the slack was gone and John was probably as hard as he had ever been in his life. Dave knew that’s how he felt, and he spared himself a selfish minute to tug and squeeze his own oversensitive shaft.

Dave decided that the rest of John’s cock needed his attention too. Shifting his hand to the side, he licked and kissed tip to base on one side. While it drew the right kind of noises from John, it also left Dave with a wet smear of his own saliva all the way across his cheek. He managed to somewhat discretely wipe it off with the back of the hand he’d been jerking himself off with, but as soon as he leaned in to try it again the slick trail was back. Dave was annoyed that there was yet another distraction and yet another thing he wasn’t doing right. At least, looking like a doofus with saliva dripping off your chin never seemed to be an issue for the givers of blowjobs in the porn he’d seen. Intellectually Dave knew that those people were professionals and that most porn was not particularly realistic, but it still irked him that he couldn’t even keep his own spit where he wanted it to be.

After the third time Dave gave up on wiping off his face and instead focused on kissing every single patch of smooth, hot skin he could get at. He hoped that if he was good enough at it then John wouldn’t have a chance to notice the amount of drool dripping down his cock. At least, Dave though absently, the amount of moisture made it easier to pump the base of his friend’s dick in time with the short bobs of his head. 

However awkward and unsexy it felt to Dave, John seemed to be enjoying himself just fine. A couple of times he threaded his fingers through blond hair but would always forcibly return that hand to the other boy’s shoulder. Dave decided it was probably a good thing that John was controlling that particular urge on the first attempt, and that it was also really fucking hot that John had that urge in the first place. Dave imagined being pushed down, forcing the cock on his tongue further down his throat, and he moaned around his mouthful. That vibration was enough to make John gasp sharply and then frantically shove the other boy away. Dave caught himself and after a moment of definitely not pouting he realized what was going on. He blindly groped around on the floor for a decently soft piece of clothing, his eyes firmly locked on the sight of John desperately jerking himself off. Dave came up with a pair of boxers. He batted away John’s hands, wrapped the cloth around the stiff length, and _squeezed_.

John came with a strangled groan.


	9. Turning Tables

There was no way that satisfied look was staying off of Dave’s face; John was _dazed_.

“So... was it good for you?” Dave asked cheekily. He was very proud that his first blowjob had ended in success.

John made a valiant effort at glaring in response but he was too out of it for the expression to have any bite.

Dave chuckled as he climbed up on the bed, hauling his friend around until they were comfortably lying side by side. For a while Dave just watched John try to get himself back together. It wasn’t full on swooning and destroyed in the best possible way as had been described in a couple trashy romance fics which Dave definitely did not read, but it did take John several deep breaths before his eyes came back into focus. Dave idly brushed his fingers against John’s arm as he contemplated the likelihood of a kiss going the right way. He didn’t think there would be any problem since the bulk of it was wadded up in a pair of Squiddles boxers on the floor, but Dave wasn’t completely sure what the etiquette was on makeouts after oral sex. With a sigh he resigned himself to keeping his lips to himself until John either made a move or told him to brush his teeth.

Suddenly, John sat up in the bed. Before Dave could say anything he found himself shifted to the side and straddled across the waist, and having John in that position made any sort of speech very difficult. The question of whether or not John was okay with tasting his own cock secondhand was quickly answered as Dave found himself with a mouthful of tongue. Enthusiastic tongue. _Forceful_ tongue. Dave wound his arms around the other boy’s neck and drank it in. He definitely one hundred percent did not have any problem with getting on his knees if it ended with John acting like that. After a couple minutes of what could only be described as tonguefucking John sat back on his heels.

“Um, okay,” he said brightly, sounding a little embarrassed but overall pleased. “That was amazing.”

“Yeah?” Dave smirked.

“I didn’t—wow, thank you?” John giggled and leaned back down for another quick kiss.

“No problem,” Dave languidly responded. He stretched just for the excuse to feel John’s hips pressing down against his stomach. His imagination took off like a shot with that sensation but Dave knew none of that would be happening that night. And he was fine with that, but something really did need to happen because Dave wasn’t sure if he’d ever been that hard. “So you know I love it when you stroke my ego—and rightfully so—but I was kind of hoping for a different kind of stroking. Lend a hand?”

John bit his lip and his expression turned to a baffling half-and-half of bashful naked hotness and mischievous prankster. Dave had learned to be wary of the latter, but the former was doing a great job of distracting him. John moved to the side and almost shyly touched his friend’s hip. Dave splayed his legs and John settled on his knees between them. Dave’s smirk softened under the expectation of those deft pianist’s fingers playing him like a symphony. The first touch was so electric that he jumped. What followed was slower than their usual frantic pace. Even so, Dave was so lost in the sensation, with his head thrown back and his eyes fluttering shut, that he didn’t realize John was moving until an elbow brushed his thigh.

Dave’s mouth went dry.

He snapped his head down to look and, sure enough, John had settled on his stomach. He was propped up on his arms with his knees bent to account for the end of the bed. John was still gently pumping the other boy’s dick and he licked his lips nervously.

Before Dave even knew his mouth was open there were words tumbling out of it.

“John, you—oh fuck,” Dave’s eloquence had abandoned him, but the sudden pressing need to get this point across didn’t let him slow down. “You don’t, I mean, damn it—you don’t have to. You really don’t if you don’t want to. I swear I didn’t blow you just to get—oh god—get _this_.”

John looked a little stunned. “Dave...”

“No, seriously, listen. There’s no—I didn’t expect anything, well, okay, so maybe I wanted you to jerk me off after but that was it. And even if you decided you didn’t want to do even that then that would be cool, not like I haven’t taken care of myself before, and I just—I really hope I don’t sound as stammery and lame as I think I sound.”

John rested his head on his fist in an exaggerated gesture of boredom. 

“Shut up, asshole,” Dave shot back. The initial panic was wearing off and he was starting to wonder why he’d reacted so violently to the idea. “I’m being serious, jackwipe. I just wanted to see what it was like. It’s cool if you don’t blow me, all right?”

“Yes, all right!” John answered with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Gosh, are you done yet?”

“Are you listening to anything I’m saying, here?”

John’s answer was to deliver a wet, openmouthed kiss to the inside of Dave’s thigh. 

“O... oh,” was all Dave could manage.

“Geeze, why are you making such a federal fucking issue out of this?” John scooted up a bit, steadying Dave’s cock and licking his lips again. “It’s a blowjob, not brain surgery, right?”

“I—“

“You’re not the only one who’s allowed to be curious!” John snapped. He sounded more than a little defensive, which set off obnoxiously loud alarms in Dave’s head. He managed to pull his sparking brain together long enough to realize that John’s tone was probably directed more at himself than at Dave. 

“John... you don’t—“

“Uhg, I know that already!” John was starting to sound legitimately angry. “Will you stop talking to me like I’m some kind of moron? It’s getting on my nerves.”

No matter how much Dave wanted to feel that wet heat around him, he never would have been able to live with himself if he let it go at that. He floundered for some way to make things better, make it _right_ , and for lack of a better idea he reached down and caressed John’s cheek.

“For real, John,” he said softly. “It’s okay.”

John looked like he was readying another sharp retort but he shut his jaw with a click. Leaning into Dave’s hand, he took a slow, careful breath and let some of his tension go. He was still nervous, but it was a reasonable level of nervous. It didn’t make Dave’s gut clench up with something unnamable.

Dave withdrew his hand, and John kissed the soft skin of his inner thigh again. This time it was close-mouthed, almost chaste, and it made Dave shiver for a completely different reason.

“D-don’t try to, uhm, don’t try to take it all,” he mumbled. “S’not a good idea.”

“Okay.”

Dave wracked his brain for what other tips he could glean from his limited experience. “Hands are good. And you, just look at what you’re doing, because that helps.”

“Got it.”

“... Look, seriously are you sure—“

“Will you shut up or do I have to shut you up?”

A small, faraway part of Dave’s mind mused that if he ever needed a safeword then that challenging tone would be far more effective than a random word. Dave propped himself up on his elbows and glared at the boy between his legs. “Oh, yeah? How the hell are you going to manage that?”

John gave the other boy’s cock a short, experimental lick.

Dave let his head fall back. There was a lot of fumbling at the start which mostly involved John carefully stroking around the head, which Dave realized was the other boy’s version of ‘your dick is weird.’ Amazing and unbelievable as it was that it was actually a thing that was happening, Dave found himself distracted by the fact that John was handling the nervousness far better. John wasn’t blurting stupid shit or insulting his blowjob partner’s sexy bits. He had the good sense to call Dave on the poor choice of the word ‘sailor’ and seriously what the hell was he thinking when he said that? Dave’s plan was to be so smooth and so sexy that his best friend couldn’t resist, but at the moment it seemed as though John had the upper hand in both of those areas. It irked Dave that he was being out-cooled by an Egbert.

Then John got down to business and all of Dave’s remaining higher brain functions were dedicated to _don’t buck up don’t choke him oh fuck this is actually happening don’t screw this up_. The texture of John’s tongue against his cock drove Dave crazy. He fisted his hand in his own hair and wound the other in the sheets and he tried his best to hang on. Dave wanted it to last, he wanted to remember every little detail, but he was already so close. Then John switched from licks to actually closing his mouth around the head and Dave was stuffing his fist in his mouth to muffle his cries of pleasure as he came.

It took Dave a few moments to gather himself. He realized that his eyes were clenched shut and blinked against the light of his room. Once the ceiling came into focus he grinned and lazily sat up.

“That was definitely a—oh _shit_.”

John was still lying on his stomach between his friend’s legs. He was propped up on his elbows with a steadying hand still on Dave’s dick.

Also, his face was splattered with come. Dave was not even remotely prepared for how unbearably hot he found that image.

John looked at his nose cross-eyed. “Ummmm...”

Dave snapped out of it and immediately felt a crushing guilt. His orgasm hit him so fast and so hard that he didn’t have the time, or presence of mind, to warn John that it was coming. Then when Dave saw the mess he had made his first thought was _uhhhhng_ shortly followed by _I hope he lets me do that to him again_ and only after that did it occur to him that what he had done was extremely rude and amateur and seriously John kept it together enough to be polite and give warning so why couldn’t he? And even after coming back to his senses Dave really, really wanted to see his best friend looking like that again. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m sorry, man,” Dave said in a rush. The unbidden fantasies running through his head were making him feel unforgivably selfish.

John was still lying there frozen. He didn’t look angry. Mostly he looked puzzled, as though he couldn’t quite figure out what the protocol was in that situation. Most of the thick fluid had landed between cheekbone and jaw with a fair amount dripping down his chin. Dave was thankful that at least none of it had gotten into John’s eyes. There was one line which diagonally crossed his lips and Dave realized that part of the hesitance was due to that; if John opened his mouth then it would be inevitable that some of it would get on his tongue.

“ _Damn it_ , just give me a second.”

So flushed with embarrassment that his skin nearly matched his eyes, Dave scooted himself back. He looked to the side and tried to spot where he had left the underwear he’d used to catch John’s come, and it was only after he saw them that Dave realized that would be adding even more slimy white stuff to the mix. His face growing even hotter he looked for something clean to use, finally reaching for the corner of his sheet. As Dave looked back at his friend he caught sight of the tip of John’s pink tongue darting out for a curious taste.

Dave gave up on trying to stomp out his brand new fantasies involving John’s face covered with come. There was no way he was ever going to forget that image. He could have total amnesia and he’d still wake up from wet dreams of a dorky brunette with an overbite being hotter than should be physically possible.

John screwed up his face in response to the bitter taste and Dave’s self-imposed guilt trip started all over again. He offered John the edge of the sheet, feeling completely and utterly lame, and John sat up, accepted the cloth, and went to work scrubbing his face clean. While he was doing that Dave looked resolutely at the far wall. He dimly remembered running his mouth the entire time John’s mouth was in contact with his dick, but he couldn’t pick out any specifics. As far as he could tell it had all been random babbling and boy did he feel all kinds of smooth. At least, Dave thought, he hadn’t made a complete fool of himself for long as it probably took less than two minutes. That fact was mortifying for a completely different reason and Dave felt like jumping out of the window just to get away from the big ball of awkward smothering him.

“Hey... you okay?”

Dave glanced at John through his peripheral vision. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t... I didn’t mess up or anything, did I?”

There was no way Dave could let the other boy think something like that. He took a deep breath, got over himself, and turned to John.

“No, man, you were great. Better than great. You were the epitome of greatness.”

John didn’t look all that convinced.

Dave shook his head. “How can you possibly think that you did something wrong when I was the jerkoff here?” He was aware he had fallen into sulking but he had lost the capacity to care. The coolkid persona was already in tatters. “I didn’t even give you a warning. Not cool.”

John laughed. “Oh man, is that what you’re worried about?”

“I’m pretty sure that spraying all over the other guy’s face is bad blowjob manners.”

“Well... yeah, I can see that,” John chuckled and shifted closer. “But you didn’t mean to do it, right?”

“No. No way.” Dave shook his head emphatically. “I’m not a complete jackass. Just enough of one not to pay attention when—“

John took the other boy’s face in his hands and kissed him. Dave could taste himself on John’s tongue and lips and discovered a kink he didn’t know he had. He threaded his fingers through dark hair and before he knew it he was being pushed back down to the mattress. Dave decided that having a naked John Egbert lying on top of him and kissing him senseless was the best thing ever and no one was going to convince him otherwise.

“Won’t happen again,” Dave murmured when they pulled apart.

“Mmm... ‘kay,” John replied between kisses.

“We good?”

John grinned sloppily and Dave felt himself relax. They kissed a couple more times before John rolled off the bed.

“Where’d my towel go?” He mumbled to himself as he looked around the room. “I better have a rinse before I head home.”

Dave tried to hide his disappointment; he wanted to cuddle and he didn’t really care how uncool that mindset was. He kept it in check and got out of bed, pulling on a clean pair of underwear and tossing the dirty clothes in the basket as John recovered his towel and headed back to the bathroom. Dave pulled his sheets off and tossed them in the basket too; some of it had missed John’s face and it was about time he did some laundry anyway. When John emerged, rinsed off and fully dressed, Dave asked him for a lift to the Laundromat. On the way down the stairs and in the car they chatted about television shows and the weather and the upcoming physics test. It was a veneer of normalcy over something a little bit awkward, a little bit anxious, and a lot of so many other mixed up emotions Dave couldn’t really pick them out.

When they reached his stop Dave paused on his way out of the car. John worried his lip and, just a little too brightly, asked, “We’re cool, right?”

Dave scoffed. “Of course we’re cool man. We are negative three Kelvin, we are so cool.”

John smiled and playfully punched Dave’s shoulder. Dave grinned and shoved him back.

They were cool. Everything was just fine.


End file.
